Time to Harvest!!

Current View From My New Room

I have to start with a disclaimer...I'm on drugs, a lot of drugs.  These drugs claim to fix dozens of ailments.  According to their claims I should feel like a super hero and fly out of my hospital room.  Instead, it takes me five minutes to hobble to the bathroom which is six feet away.  I got stuck on the way to the bathroom today because my 5XL hospital pants suddenly fell to the floor (like a classic clown routine).  It took another five minutes to bend over to pull them up.  (Before you visualize the wrong thing here, I was wearing appropriate fitting boxers.) The reason I'm laying out a disclaimer is, it's late and I don't want to ask anyone to proof read this late.  So please forgive me if I sound like a cranky, cancer patient who is too drugged up to make any sense.

Tomorrow morning, I will be hooked up to a centrifuge machine that cycles my blood in and out of me.  It also collects stem cells during this process, which is called apheresis.  Yesterday I was told that the earliest that they would collect my stem cells would be Saturday, but surprisingly, I have plenty of stem cells floating around in me now so Friday will be the day.  Like the salmon runs up the Kenai and the Copper, there's only a small window of opportunity for my stem cells to be caught, so they have to move fast.  

The bad news is they have to do an alternate method of extracting the stem cells.  Since I don't have a chest catheter any longer, they have to do it through an IV needle in each elbow.  I'm told the needles have to be wide enough to handle the large quantity of blood.  They also have to be very long.  I don't know why they have to be long other to appear more ominous.  One of the needles is rigid and goes through the bending part of my elbow so I cannot bend my arm for five hours.  In fact, they said I won't really be able to move that arm at all and the other arm is only slightly more flexible.  As they were describing it to me, I was picturing the prisoner on a table with arms strapped down for a lethal injection.  If the doctor comes out wearing a black hood, I'll know this cancer stuff was really just a dream and it will be "Good to Touch the Green, Green Grass of Home."  (How many of you got that reference?)

If they gather enough stem cells tomorrow, then I can look forward to no more growth factor shots and no more bone pain!  If they don't get enough tomorrow, then I will go back in for another session.

The picture you see is my view from my hospital window.  Yesterday I was moved from my room in Intensive Care (because they needed it for someone who actually needed intensive care) and put me into the new wing on the 8th floor.  It's a big, fancy modern room with a bed, recliner and a sofa.  The first thing my doctor said when he walked in was "Wow! This place is bigger than my house!"  He's a funny, super intelligent guy, someone you would like to go have a beer with sometime.  The head nurse is also amazing, very informative and I always feel like she is watching out for me.  And for the past two days and for tomorrow as well, my regular nurse is a young lady who is moving to Anchorage in September.  I told her that she would have no problem finding a job.

Thanks again for your support and well wishes,

Mike