On Thursday I had my stem cells collected at Northwestern. First, I had to give blood yet again. If I had a card punched each time I went to have blood drawn, a la Subway, I'd be due for one of those six-foot-long party subs by now. Then I went for the main event: my own stem cell harvest.
I know you're dying to know how this is done, but I have to digress for a second on Lyme disease. A PICC line had to be inserted prior to the actual harvest. I'd had one of these before, in my arm, for Lyme disease. I know you're asking, "How did you get Lyme disease?" I had the same thought, and rest assured that I did not, lo and behold, have it. Diagnosing Lyme disease is not an exact science, ironically. But evidently I met several criteria, and so my doctors wanted to be able to scratch that off the dry-erase board before focusing on the MS. (Here's another digression inside this digression. Think of it like a Matryoshka doll. My current medical team, as opposed to my previous one, is like Dr. House, whereas before they were like the interchangeable residents under his tutelage. I think we could have safely assumed that I did not have Lyme disease--idiots.) So I had to endure this reasonably substantial length of tubing that came out of the inside of my elbow for a month, for what turned out to be no reason. I'm not blaming the doctors on this one; I'm saying that there needs to be an actual test specifically for Lyme disease. There has to be a way, no?
Back to 2009. After having blood drawn, I went to some outpatient operating room where my PICC line was to be inserted. I know it's taken a while for this clarification, but PICC stands for "Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter." By the way, I know that "catheter" is technically correct, but we lay people think only of bladders whenever one is mentioned. Apparently, it's a broad term. So medical personnel inserted this PICC line into my neck. Like I said, I had one previously at the bend of my left arm, but the neck was new to me. And what frustrated me further was that no one got my repeated references of Regan MacNeil, especially when some huge white cube hovered over me while technicians poked, prodded, and pierced my neck. Come on, now--The Exorcist? Those primitive tests she had to go through before there was no diagnosis did not strike a bell with anyone in that room? Nary a nod or murmur of assent. Kids...
When my PICC line was secured, I returned to the room where the harvest would take place. In this room, there was a vinyl blue recliner where I would sit while my PICC line delivered my blood to the cell separator machine, whose technical name I don't know (picture below). What I do know, though, is that this hunk of machinery reminds me of the supercomputer in Willy Wonka that scientists want to use to figure out the exact locations of the remaining Golden Tickets. The computer, though, thwarts their intentions by refusing to divulge this information. Anyways, the separator reminded me of the cinematic supercomputer because it too had spinning dials and digital readouts that delivered esoteric information that I did not even try to understand.
I understood the gist, though, of its function: my blood flowed into the machine, which separated my stem cells from the rest of my blood cells by using a centrifuge, and then my "clean," stem cell-less blood returned to my blood vessels via the same PICC line from which it was sucked out.
I sat in this recliner, hooked up to the separator, for three or four hours. My concept of time, already weak, cannot allow me to make an accurate estimate. All I know is that I sat for a long time, only to fill a bag, unimpressively I thought, with what looked like a redder version of the "orange juice" antiviral serum that saved thousands of lives, including Rene Russo's, in Outbreak.
Finally, I was finished, and had only to wait for the verdict from the lab. The procedure required 2 million cells, and most people come up with 10. Me? 12. That's right--I exceeded expectations (for the first time in probably a long time).
(I'd better have done well, because the previous day mostly consisted of me trying to ignore the white-knuckle pain I felt in my lower back and then my legs--see below.)
So now I have a week off before the long hospitalization and more aggressive chemo. In anticipation, though, and after a phone call with my nurse when she expressed little surprise that my hair had not yet begun to fall out, I had Ralph (my mother's aforementioned fiance emeritus) shave my head like someone with lice, or, less humorously, a white supremacist. I assure you, though, that I don't have--and have never had--lice, nor do I dislike black people irrationally.
Just Tyler Perry, because every once in a while I'll land on TBS and have to endure, briefly, his unfunny sitcom replete with a laugh track that sounds faker than an Ashlee Simpson b-side. That's not an irrational hatred, I maintain.
R
