Stem Cell Harvest

My brother Butch sat with me all day long during my first day of stem cell harvest on November 28.  They started giving me Neupogen right after Thanksgiving on November 25th.  I went in every day for another shot to boost my white blood cell count, and therefore the stem cell count, since they are precursors to other blood cells (red, white, platelet).  The Neupogen made my bones ache, because the marrow was engorged with stem cells crowding out each other.  Claritin helped ease the pain, the same stuff that helps with a lot of reactions I have had through this process.  If you have cancer, keep a bottle of Claritin nearby.

Then on Monday, November 28, I was ready to get started.  My blood was packed full of stem cells that had escaped the bone marrow and were floating around in my blood.  The machine in the background is an all purpose machine that can be used to extract platelets, plasma, mono-nuclear cells like stem cells, etc.  There is a kit that is all self-contained with reservoirs, lines, centrifuge canisters, etc.  They load the kit and hook me up to two of the three lines in my central line.  Blood goes out one and back in the other.  When the canister inside the centrifuge is loaded, the machines spins it around until the different cells are separated.  Then it loads the stem cells (lighter, mono-nuclear cells) in one bag, and returns the heavier cells back to my body.  The process took most of the day.

I had a very successful harvest.  The typical stem cell harvest lasts 3-5 days and they harvest 2-3 million stem cells per kilo of a person's body weight.  I harvested 19.2 million per kilo in 2 days.  So that is about 1.6 billion stem cells.  I will use 2-3 million/Kilo in each transplant.  So I should be covered for several transplants.  

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