Stem Cell Collection: Day 1

Today was an eventful day!

Labs this morning showed my white cell count had jumped from 1.84 yesterday to over 6 today! My platelets were up too. My APN was pretty confident the procell count would indicate I would be ready to start collection today so she rushed me over to get my line swapped for the catheter needed to do collection. The catheter is called a Quinton catheter and it apparently has a wider lumen than the line I had in already. People kept referring to it as a "garden hose" so I was figuring it wasn't going to be entirely pleasant. While I was waiting for the line swap I got the call that the counts looked good and I needed to be over at the Apheresis Unit by 2 pm. It was 1:10 so the race was on! Luckily they have their act together in Line Placement and the lovely Sheila got me out by 1:50. (It wasn't too unpleasant, but it is sore now.)

We headed over to Apheresis and for a minute there was a question as to whether they would start today since by the time I checked in it was after 2pm. Luckily the doctor said to go for it and start today. This was great news since they have to collect for at least two sessions. If they pushed me to tomorrow I would collect Friday and Saturday, but I wouldn't be able to get my line out until Monday. Starting today I can finish collection tomorrow, get my garden hose out, and hopefully be discharged tomorrow to go home. Fingers crossed collection goes well! The goal is 20 million cells, enough to do many more than the two transplants I'm scheduled for.

Over at apheresis they got me hooked up to the machine pretty quickly. Basically they hook you up to the machine by the two tubes to the catheter (the wider lumen is needed to allow a large amount of blood to flow easily). Blood flows out one tube to the the machine and the machine uses a centrifuge to separate out the cell fraction containing the stem cells. The rest of the blood is then returned to you through the other tube. Here is a picture of the machine in action.


The bag hanging in the middle contains the stem cell layer that was separated out. A little noisy but completely painless. They collected for about two hours. Once they are done they send the bag to the lab where they process the cells. This includes counting them, testing to make sure the cells they healthy and free of any bacteria or viruses, and cryopreserving them so they will still be good when I'm ready for transplant. We won't know how many cells we got today until tomorrow morning.

I'm really thankful that I bounced back so quickly this week and was ready for collection today. I've gotten to know a few other patients in the clinic who started around the same time I did, and many of them have had complications that have slowed them down. My fingers are crossed they won't be far behind getting to collection.