Squish, squish, pump, pump. I held the tiny squishy football in the palm of my hand. I’d been given the dollar store toy by my nurse. Every time I felt a spasm in my vein I was to pump the little ball. Failure to do so resulted in the machine emitting two short buzzes followed by it sounding the alarm and grinding to a halt.
If, after my vein twinged, I pumped and squeezed the ball the apheresis machine resumed its chuh, chuh, chuh, chuh, chuh, chuh, chuh, chuh. The rhythmic sound reminded me of a steam engine. But instead of spewing out smoke, this machine was spewing out my stem cells.
The process of peripheral blood stem cell harvesting was relatively simple. Over the course of the past week, I had given myself a number of Grastofil injections. The injections caused my bone marrow to mass produce stem cells and send them out into my bloodstream.
Upon collection day, I arrived at the hospital at 7:30 am as the procedure can take up to 8 hours on the first day. If enough cells are not collected on the first day, then a second day of collection is performed.
I met my nurse who remained with me through the whole procedure. She was an expert at finding veins and quickly set to work putting a needle and catheter in each arm. The metal needle and catheter in the vein of my left arm was connect to the machine. My blood flowed out of my left arm and into the machine. The machine used centripetal force to separate the blood. Stem cells were then sent into a collection bag while the remaining blood was sent back into my body via my right arm.
My nurse was my personal cheerleader. She regularly checked the machine and would cheer me on with statements like, “You’re doing great!” or “We’re almost there.” I was given lovely warm blankets to heat up my body and increase blood flow. It was almost like a day at the spa where your goal is to simply rest and relax.
The only difficult part of the process was to not move. Any movement disrupted the flow of blood and caused the machine to sound the alarm. Even small movements like texting on a phone using only one hand while the phone is braced against your leg could cause a disruption to the flow. Resting and relaxing quickly became the reality.
We were in luck and within 4 hours had collected the required number of stem cells. I was headed home and my lovely little bag of liquid gold was sent off to be frozen and stored until mid-February when it will be returned to me.
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