My own harvest festival



While Vanessa made love to the camera, Mat made friends with the "harvesting" machine



Prior to this momentous event I had endured daily shots of G-CSF growth injections for nearly ten days.  This was to stimulate stem cell production.  Again, I had been warned of the side effects (primarily bone pain) but hadn’t bargained on feeling like someone was cutting me in half from the hips down whilst the rest of my bones were being wrung out.  I had this every day for nearly 10 days and the strongest pain killer I was allowed was a paracetamol. It was horrible. Apparently, this was a “really good sign” because this was an indicator of all the new stem cells mobilising themselves from the bone marrow into my bloodstream where they would stay ready for harvesting. 

I also had the pleasure of having a femoral line fitted which was surprisingly painless if a little undignified. The veins in my arms were too small for all the tubing needed. I did find it fascinating watching the ultrasound of my veins and arteries in my groin area and this made me feel a little better about the procedure.  The nurse involved was great in explaining what she was going to do.  I heard the word “femoral” and being a drama queen, thought of that hideous scene in Black Hawk Down but in the end, it was a walk in the park, quite dull really.

The actual stem cell harvest itself was pretty uneventful – I just had to lie there for a few hours while the machine did its thing – suck out blood from me from one tube, retrieve stem cells, return blood up another tube.  UCH have five of these machines which they obtained back in the 90s and so each machine was given a name befitting of its time – Ginger, Baby, Sporty, Scary and Posh.  I got Baby and needless to say as with the band, the busiest machines on the day were Ginger, Baby and Sporty. Not sure what Scary was doing but I noticed Posh at the end looking good but not really doing much.  No change there then!  Apparently, the unit is due to receive a brand new machine – small, compact with a shiny bottom and they are naming this one Kylie.



A miracle of modern science and they call me "Baby"


I was given two days to produce as many stem cells as possible and they give you these two days to allow your body as much chance for the harvest.  I was told that 4 million was the best number to aim for  – 2 million for use for the transplant now and 2 million to be frozen for use further along the line as and when I needed it.  I ended up producing 7.2 million. She shoots! She scores! 

I think other people were more delighted than me at the time. I was still on a come down from the actual harvest and the bone pain.  I also felt a little guilty as the chap next to me was asked to return the next day as he only produced 3.2 million stem cells that day.  He was told it was really rare for people to produce all the cells in one day, most people produce in two days blah, blah, blah.  And there was me sitting there over-producing after having reached my target. Gulp.
 
Now it’s a question of waiting for the hardest part of my treatment – the stem cell transplant.  I was due in hospital on the 1st Dec but my medical team wanted to give my body enough time to recover from the harvesting and so it’s been pushed to the 6th Dec when it’s all systems go.  I’ll keep you posted.

photos courtesy of vanessavanillaflavour