Treatment day 4: Medical treatment is getting a little more invasive and a little more intense

Several of us began to have some back pain from the steroids and stem cell stimulation medicine last night. Dr Fedorenko was able to provide us with medicine which provided us with very quick relief. Stem cell stimulation can cause bone pain as the stem cells are leaching their way through the bones. I've read that it is fairly common to have this issue with back, hips, and legs. Thankfully it seems to be quite mild for all of us. Today I did not really have any pain just some discomfort. I took two Tramadol thinking the pain would build during the day. But, to my pleasure it did not so I did not take any more medicines.

Received the morning dose of the steroids. Before I had an opportunity to do anything else I was summoned from me room, Led up to the third floor and was prepped for the insertion of the neck catheter. Purpose of the neck catheter is to remove the blood that is carrying all of the newly generated stem cells from your body to run through an aphresis machine to harvest the stem cells. The aphersis machine works similar to a dialysis machine. The difference is a dialysis machine removes human waste from the blood by filtering the blood. After the blood is filtered it is returned to the patient and is clean blood. What I will have done to my blood is to essentially separate the stem cells from my blood and is collected so that it can be returned to my body when the time is right. Importantly the stem cells must be frozen during the wait or they will not survive.

Wanted to take a moment to explain why I am have a neck catheter installed and what the point is of doing something this this. When it comes time to harvest and return the stem cells I will dive into the details a little more. I snapped some pictures of my stem cell brother Brian Melton, with his permission of course. The procedure was exactly the same for both of us and they were both completely uneventful.

To put things into perspective here is the size what the catheter looks like is that actual size. It will run down the jugular vein right up to the heart. Brian mentioned that he felt some heart palpitations during the insertion and the doctor told him it normal and not to be concerned.

 Actual size of catheter removed catheter from Sarah

 Brian receiving local anesthesia before insertion

My finished product. It looks way worse than it was. Not really painful because of the local anesthesia. Just felt some pressure. After the anesthesia wore of there was some tenderness and stiffness, however it was mild to say the least.

I decided to add one more picture of Bryan's catheter being inserted.This illustrated how the catheter follows the guide down through the jugular vein. The doctor had to push fairly aggressively to get the catheter into proper position. A person needs roughly 2 million stem cells per 1 kg of weight. Well pot belly Ken here weights 109 kg. So I need a boat load of stem cells. We will have to see how well we can produce stem cells or we may be doing this a couple or three days. Sarah was able to hit her number in one day. Dr. Fedorenko told me that 25% of patients can complete in one day. More on this topic tomorrow as we get underway.

Tomorrow Sarah with have her stem cell transplant after we are finished with the harvesting of our stem cells. Dr. Fedorenko has a way cool tradition her for celebrating a patients transplant. He calls it a New Birthday and is considered year 0. Brian, Espen, and I purchased a Birthday cake for Sarah. (Truth be told the birthday cake is kind of for us too because we are looking for any old excuse to eat flavorful food, ie non hospital food) LOL Forever now Sarah will two birthdays to celebrate each and every year!!! Should be a festive event. I'll take some video and copy it in the next post.

Couple of quick pictures of our hospital food to give you a flavor(less) idea of our cuisine. Honestly though its not all bad. I brought a handful of spices to spruce things up a bit. Found the boiled apples to be tasty. I like to sprinkle cinnamon and sometimes I add sugar. Their soups are fairly good also. They do not come with salt and pepper so I brought my own. Sometimes I add some Rosemary too.
BTW, these are two separate meals. Portions are fairly small so a person should eat all of your food or you will remain hungry until the next meal.

Well I am off to bed, it will be a big day tomorrow. During aphresis tomorrow we get the displeasure of wearing a depends diaper. We will be chair bound for 4 to 5 hours and cannot take a bathroom break.Ah...technically we can take a bathroom break, that is what the depends is for after all, we just can't walk into a restroom like a dignified adult. :-)