I am, of all things, excited about a day off, especially on a Wednesday. The last couple of months at work have been very busy. I have two small children at home. The thought of sitting in a chair all day long reading books and watching movies is very appealing even if I have to have blood sucked out of my body by a large machine to get the day off. I have three DVDs in my bag (The Dark Knight, Madagascar 2, and Wanted), and I've even brought my brand-new Kindle.
My entire body is sore. The filgrastim injections I've received since Saturday have increased the amount of peripheral blood stem cells in my system, resulting in flu-like symptoms. Mostly I've just been tired and my back has ached. It's certainly not incapacitating, and nothing compared to what the recipient has been going through. But it gets old after a while, especially after the late-night simulation I had on Monday. Hot showers and ibuprofen help some, but I'm ready to have this stuff sucked out of my body so I can get back to normal.
Martha is there with the technicians. They expect the procedure to take about four hours based on my size and the number of stem cells the recipient requires. I tell them I've got at least six hours of movies so they can take as long as they need. The room is very clinical in appearance but then, it is a clinic. There are several couches and they show me to mine. Over the next fifteen minutes the technician inserts a needle into my left arm that draws the blood out and sends it through a centrifuge machine, separating out the layer of peripherical blood stem cells. Another line feeds into my right arm sending everything except the PBSCs back into my system.
Over the course of the day others come and go for treatment. A middle-aged woman is wheeled in next to me. She is clearly very sick, presumably with cancer, and is receiving chemotherapy. I think about the last time I sat this close to someone receiving chemotherapy treatment and hope her story ends as well.
I refrain from drinking very much. Once I'm hooked up to the machine there's no un-hooking so if I need to pee they draw a curtain around me and hand me a plastic bottle. Fortunately this is only necessary once over the course of the day. Admittedly the process is much simpler as a guy but handling all the equipment with one arm mostly incapacitated and the other completely immobilized takes a little more concentration than normal. Going through the process once is more than enough.
An LCD TV is mounted within easy viewing distance and the technician is happy to swap out movies as often as I want. The apheresis machine requires constant management by the technician and his company is appreciated.
We sit next to each other for seven hours.
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