karl&myeloma

Today is Neupogen day 5, and I am very happy to report, it is the last in this course of therapy.

Today was my apheresis day. Please notice that I used the past tense and the singular. If you recall, I was scheduled for two days of apheresis because this is what is usually required to harvest (collect) 5 million stem cells as a minimum; with 10 million being the goal that the doctors prefer their patients to have collected.

Well [drum roll please] at the mid-point of the scheduled total collection time of 6 hours, a sample of my stem cells collected thus far was taken, and when the results came back, I was at 16.1 million cells collected!!

Praise be to God!

It had taken the lab about 1-1/2 hours to complete their analysis, and then as you might imagine, the doctor monitoring me and results, said “Double check them please”. By the time that could all be completed, a total of 2 hours post mid-point sampling had gone by before they could be sure that all was good, and that I could be disconnected, and not have to come in for a second day. My rough estimate is that there should be in excess of 25 million cells collected.

I wish to thank the talented team of nurses at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center Apheresis Department, Marcia, Jesus, and Monica, for their most excellent care. In the time I was there I learned a lot about how the collecting machine works and the various safeguards built in to the whole process.

Tomorrow I will get the exact count and perhaps some idea as to when the actual transplant phase might start.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for my healing.

Amen.