Syzdekistan

Yesterday was my bone marrow donation. More properly it was a Peripheral Blood Stem Cell Donation (PBSC) which presumably was a bit easier on me than the other method which involves a big hollow needle, an operating room, and a few days with a sore back.

Wednesday I picked up Big Brother and we went to the airport. The flight to Santa Ana (John Wayne) Airport was quick and the plane was almost empty. We both enjoyed bulkhead seats and a good view of LA. Despite Santa Ana winds and a few big bumps as the airplane approached the airport over the ocean, this time I managed to avoid air sickness. We were quickly picked up by a limo and taken to a Hilton in Anaheim. The Santa Ana wind was strong enough to blow the Lincoln Town Car all over the road. The hotel was supposed to be paid for and we were supposed to have a room with two beds. However, the rather unhelpful desk clerk made me pay for the room and when we got to the room it was nice but had a single bed. I called the desk and they had no rooms with two beds. We requested a roll-away bed and Big Brother got the real bed and I slept in the “living room” of the suite.

The limo picked us up at 7:00 AM. We were taken to the cancer center at a big hospital in Orange County. After a few minutes of waiting, I was ushered back to where I would spend the day. I got my last three Neupogen injections (in the stomach) and the nurse started an IV in my right hand. Big Brother and I went to the hospital cafeteria for a big breakfast. It was going to be a long day.

We returned to the cancer center and they nurse started another IV in my left arm. Then they simply hooked me up to a apheresis machine which drew my blood from my left arm, centrifuged it to separate the bone marrow stem cells, and then the rest of the blood components were returned to a vein in my right hand. Unlike the apheresis machines at my local blood center, this machine had a blood warmer so I didn’t get chilled with room temperature blood returning to me.

Here I am, hooked up and watching The Simpsons Movie on my laptop. The cart on the left had a VCR, DVD player, a small TV, and a stack of old VHS tapes. The arm at the top of the picture had a brand new LCD TV monitor. The monitor was brand new and had some strange proprietary inputs that wouldn’t work with the DVD player. In fact, the monitor didn’t work with anything. Big Brother messed with the monitor for a while and gave up so I watched movies and listened to some podcasts and music on the Macbook Pro. I brought a whole stack of movies lent to me by one of my interns but the only movie I managed to watch was The Simpsons.

This is the apheresis machine. The marrow stem cells that were collected are in the bag on the far right. They ran 25 liters of my blood through the machine to get 0.25 liters of stem cells. The light pink bag is waste saline that was used to prime the machine. It’s pink because it as a small amount of my blood mixed with it. The other bags are saline and an anti-coagulant (sodium citrate). Not pictured is an infusion pump for a calcium supplement containing a solution of calcium gluconate. The blood warmer is the white object on the left of the machine. Below the picture is a cabinet which contains the centrifuge that separates the blood components.

All in all, the donation went OK. During the morning, I was pretty comfortable and enjoyed my movie, chatting with the nurses, and figuring out exactly what was being done to me. I had some low blood calcium levels due to the action of the anti-coagulant which made my lips and face tingle a bit. To counteract the low calcium levels, they increased the calcium gluconate drip, gave me some Tums, and eventually paused the apheresis machine for a few minutes. I was also experiencing some back pain so I was given some painkillers. I did experience some pretty bad nausea from the painkillers which made for an unpleasant afternoon.

Finally, after about 8 hours on the machine, I was done. I had produced about 0.25 liters of precious bone marrow stem cells that would be soon transplanted into a 67 year old leukemia patient and hopefully giving her a new lease on life. Her bone marrow had been completely destroyed to eradicate her cancer. My cells would find their way to her bones and begin producing the myriad of blood cells that she needs for her immune system.

After being disconnected from the machine, I spent some time fighting the nausea from the painkillers and then Big Brother and I took the limo back to the hotel room. The transplant coordinator had straightened out the billing problem and had gotten us separate rooms. I was still feeling ill and collapsed on the bed while Big Brother enjoyed a room service steak and watched a movie. He checked on me after the movie and found that I had fallen asleep on top of my suitcase! Being a nice guy, he pulled it out from under me and went back to his own room.

Friday morning, I was feeling much better but somewhat tired and still a little bit green. We had breakfast at the hotel, took the limo back to the airport, and had a lunch at the airport. Killing time, we walked around the terminal and Big Brother took a lot of airplane pictures.

We got back to Las Vegas mid-afternoon on Friday and I spent most of the weekend watching football and relaxing on the couch. By Monday, I was almost back to normal. I still had some bone pain from the Neupogen for a few more days but it was minor.

Despite the three trips to Orange County, three days of missed work, some aches, shots, and some nausea, this experience is something I wouldn’t have missed. Donating my marrow was an amazing, uplifting, and unique way to help someone. I feel incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to save a life and I would do it all again. Please, take some time to register with the National Bone Marrow Registry.

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