Mobilization Day 11 – One Very Long Succesful Day

Hi Everyone, I wrote most of this blog yesterday (Thursday), but completed it today (Friday). All events below happened on Thursday. 😘 Today was the big harvest day and probably one of the days I dreaded most. We all woke up (and stayed up) at 3 AM (unintentionally). At 6:15 my mother and I took a cab to the hospital. My father and brother followed on foot. Our first stop was interventional radiology to have the dreaded jugular catheter put in and I was relieved they allowed my mother to come back with me. We had a long wait of over an hour, but I kept entertained by a woman a few spots down insisting she be allowed to smoke before she is rolled to the back for the procedure. The woman was clearly shocked of the no smoking rule. My Mom and I just sat in our little curtained room in awe of the battle incurring. What even shocked me more was that the nurse eventually rolled her out to have a smoke. Hey, I guess you have to do whatever it takes to ~~shut up~~ calm down a clearly self medicated woman (not me… Yeah, not me. Lol) Although they let my mother come back with me, she was not allow be in the OR. We departed ways and I spent 30 minutes in the OR, of which 15 was applying tape. After port was in, we had to The Blood Center on another floor to have blood drawn. Once that was done, We had about 2 hours until the results were in. Tom, My parents and I went to the cafeteria for breakfast. Once we were done eating, we went back upstairs. When we walked back into the Blood Center, we were surprised to hear that not only were my stem cell estimates back, but they were enormous! The needed amount of cells for HSCT with Dr B is usually about 2MM and I pulled in an estimate of 53MM! We were all blown away. So, we got to work. It was a long 4-4:30 hours. I was still in a lot of bone pain, but sleeping wasn’t happening. Tom had to leave to catch his flight out around 1. I was back to my core support team. The lab man came around at about 3:15. When They both saw the “please don’t make me sleep with these tubes hanging out of my neck” pathetic look in my eye, I knew he would wait. I even offered to have both my parents run multiple errands for him while he did. lol. So, the bags were taken off the machine and given to the nicest lab man ever and send on their way. He promised he would have the results by 5 (Which was a huge relief since I was told on my vein check appointment (that still needs a new name). While we waited, My parents and I ran to Cosi. It’s my mother’s favorite sandwich shop and I hid the fact that there was one close to the hospital (in the hospital actually) so we didn’t have to go everyday. Don’t judge, ask my father how many times she had gone to Doc B’s since we have been there. Anyway, We ate, face timed and decided to go back to the blood center to wait it out. We getup there and hang out with our awesome stemmie twin family for a bit when the lovely woman who had been with us all afternoon tells me she has to go do another procedure and once my counts were back another woman would be taking my port out. She hugs me and leaves. But not before I made her promise the new woman didn’t hurt. I even showed my big guns and threatened to withhold the duct tape rose pen I was making for her if it did.. I know, BRUTAL! About 5 minutes later she comes running back. pparently my counts were back and I collected an insane 43,000,000 stem cells. I honestly thought the original estimate was probably off, but GUESS NOT! It was official, the port was coming out! think I ran back to my room. Now, I videoed this part for you. If you at all squeamish, you might not want to watch this. Just remember there are twin 8 year old girls in Texas that can watch it while eating spaghetti and meatballs.