1) leg
2) stomach
3) arm
Thursday, September 8, 2011
White Cell Power!
Hey everyone,
So I wanted to give an update regarding the stem cell donation process for savvy. I arrived in Houston august 30th and immediately jumped into the whirlwind known as Savannah's schedule. Let me tell you they are busier then anyone else I know!
Beginning the first of September I went into MD Anderson and drew 14 vials of blood, got a chest X-rays and an EKG. Everything looks good health wise for me. My resting heart rate was 44 which was funny, because its lower then my dads (he flaunts that he works out 1000x more then me).
Once all my lab results came back I met with the stem cell and leukemia doctors and was prescribed a drug called Neupogen which causes my body to rapidly generate and release white blood cells and stem cells into my blood. The medications was 2 shots a day. Big tam was the nurse in charge of my shots and I think she had too much fun with it. The look in her eyes with those needles was a little disconcerting.....
FYI the shot was subcutaneous and I took it in the arms, stomach and legs. In terms of least amount of pain I rate them as
1) leg
2) stomach
3) arm
The medication had some side effects for me. Mostly bone pain. It seems when all the cells are trying to get out of my bone they cause some stress which is felt as an achy feeling. It was generally located in my lower back and my joints.
Four days after I started my treatments I went into the apheresis center and began the extracting process. Basically the shove a huge needle into a vain on one arm and a iv Into my other arm. The machine sucks the blood out, separates the plasma, white blood cells, and red blood cells then puts the white blood cells in a bag for further processing. The stem cells are all mixed in with the WBCs so they have to goto another lab to be separated and counted.
The process for me takes about 3.5 hours and is generally painless, although I was ready to get out of the bed by the time it was done.
Their goal for number if stem cells collected is 4 million per kilogram. Hopefully my procedure yielded more then that!
1) leg
2) stomach
3) arm
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I apologize for posting this on your blog, I just didn’t know how else to contact you! My name is Natalia and I’m the Community Coordinator for an online health community called WEGO Health (www.wegohealth.com). I came across your blog, Savannah Rollins AML Blog, while doing some research into the online Blood Cancer community. I was so impressed with the great resource you have created for the greater Blood Cancer community.
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to drop you a quick note because we recently launched a new video platform called WEGOHealth.tv and are in the process of building a Blood Cancer Channel featuring the advice, information and wisdom of Health Activists like yourself. I think you would be an excellent addition to the channel and I would love to chat with you about possibly creating a video with us!
Please check out our site; http://tv.wegohealth.com/ and get back to me at your convenience if you have any interest.
I know this note is a little out of the blue and I understand if it’s not something you would be interested in, but I didn’t want you to miss out on the opportunity.
Thanks,
Natalia
Community Coordinator
WEGO Health
nataliaf@wegohealth.com