Tag: stem cell collection

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Anywhere and anytime

After our spontaneous performance in the apheresis unit

Our new singing motto seems to be: “Anywhere and anytime” — including the apheresis unit of UC Davis Cancer Center!

When you’re sitting around for five hours hooked up to a blood separating machine, there’s lots and lots of time for chatting with the nurses who are watching over the process. By the end of two days they knew that we were musicians and that we direct the music ministry at our church.

As we were preparing to go, we thanked them all for being so kind and upbeat, while they assured us that we had been the perfect patients — all in all, it was quite the mutual appreciation society.

So, when — in the midst of all the thanks and laughter — they asked us to sing something before leaving, we didn’t hesitate. Of course I wasn’t in full voice, but it felt like a perfect opportunity to share some of the blessings we were feeling.

One of the nurses grabbed her phone and took the video; unfortunately it ended up sort of blurry and sidewise, but you can still hear the song — “Make Us Channels of Thy Peace” by Swami Kriyananda.

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Collection finished

Google image of an apheresis machine (I didn’t think to take a photo of mine)

If you’re like me, you probably never heard the term “apheresis” before, so a definition might be a good idea:
“Apheresis is the process of withdrawing blood, filtering something out of the blood, and then putting the filtered blood back into the body, using a cell-separating machine.” 

In my case, the goal of apheresis was “collecting adequate numbers of peripheral blood stem cells for transplantation,” which I’m glad to report was successful.

A minimum of 3 million stem cells are required for the bone marrow transplant. It took two days, but they were able to “harvest” a total of 3.8 million from me.

I’m feeling a little tired and somewhat drained. Strange in a way, since all I did was sit there while the machine did the work. But it’s not that surprising really, considering the entire volume of my blood was removed and returned to my body four times on each of the two days.

Modern medicine really is quite amazing.

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Update to the update

Day 1 of stem cell collection accomplished!

Ramesha took this photo at the beginning of the process. I was on the machine for five hours. They harvested about a third of the necessary stem cells, so we’ll be returning tomorrow to do it all again.

As has been the case throughout this entire journey, the nurses and attendants are all exceptionally competent and caring. Such a blessing!

Since I’m just sitting in the chair the whole time, it was an opportunity to catch up on a number of emails and text messages…until the nurse suggested that I lay back and nap (reminding me yet again about resting).

My instructions were to go home, take it easy, and eat a good dinner. So, I just ordered Mexican food to be delivered to the house (one of the perks of being in the city!).

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August 28 health update

Greetings from Sacramento!

We’ve been here for almost five full days and are finally starting to feel completely settled into our temporary home.

Our Wednesday arrival was fairly intense. We packed up the car, drove to Sacramento, unloaded the car, grabbed a quick lunch and then headed to the hospital for three separate appointments (lab work, COVID test, and a teaching appointment about the nitty gritty bone marrow transplant details). 

It was a bit much.

But then we were up early Thursday morning to start with the injections (administered by Ramesha!) that stimulate the stem cells to grow faster, followed by a 7:00am appointment in vascular access to put a “tunneled catheter” into my upper chest, where it will remain for the next however many weeks.This catheter will be used for the stem cell collection as well as to draw blood and give me necessary IV infusions, hydrating fluids, etc. (I shared in more detail about that experience in this blog post.) 

Friday was mostly recovery and putting things away, while Saturday was a supposedly quick trip to visit a friend who I hadn’t seen since before the pandemic; unfortunately we didn’t reckon on traffic, which made it into a much longer day than anticipated. Today we went for a walk, watched the Ananda Village Sunday service online, and did some grocery shopping — all blessedly low key activities.

However, tomorrow is the big stem cell collection day! We report to the apheresis unit at 8:00am and I’ll be on the machine for approximately 4-6 hours. It will be great if they can get enough stem cells that first day but if not, we’ll repeat the process on Tuesday and even Wednesday, as needed.

And that’s all there is to report so far. More soon…

Love from Sharon & Fabio
(aka Bhagavati & Ramesha)