This is life

I just woke up and it is a grey, wet day down here next to the lake. I spent the whole day yesterday in the hospital hooked up to the apheresis machine and watched blood stream out of my left arm, through a complicated network of tubes and pumps and back into my right arm. As the pumps turned and clicked, my stem cells were being separated out by a centrifuge that hummed deep in the heart of the machine. The side effects of the Neupogen finally made themselves apparent. All my joints ached, especially my hips. I had a nasty headache and I was dizzy enough to walk into at least one wall. After six hours of trying to read a novel one-handed, trying to catch a nap and some idle chatting, I watched as the nurse and technicians carefully disconnected a plastic bag from the machine about half full of what looked like Campbell's cream of tomato soup and write some numbers on the label. The nurse placed it on the tray table in front of me, gently patted it and said to me in her beautiful Ukraine accent, " This is life."

For the first time since this journey began I really felt proud of what I had done. Until now I had tried to politely accept everyone's praise and hide my embarrasment because I hadn't really done anything, yet. But it is over now for me and that bag full of life is hanging over a machine in some other hospital transfusion center. That machine has a complicated network of tubes with another man's arms connected to them and my stem cells are making the journey to their new home. I can only hope that they work as hard in his body as they did in mine.

Go to work guys...I'm taking a nap.

The last mile

I started receiving the Neupogen injections yesterday. It is used primarily to stimulate the production of white blood cells within bone marrow. It will also stimulate the production of stem cells and set them free into my blood stream so an apheresis machine can spin them around and make them dizzy enough to make them want to jump into a plastic bag. If you're a medical professional reading this you have my apologies. I know that my explanations are the equivalent of baby talk but I never went to med school, barely passed any biology course and need to simplify all this down to a level where I can wrap my own head around all this. Speaking of medical professionals, the doctors, nurses, counselors and technicians who have guided me through this process have been so kind and loving that I get those little tears in the corner of my eyes when they aren't looking. (Please don't tell anyone!)

The potential side effects of the Neupogen have not manifested yet. I haven't grown a third eye in the back of my head and I don't feel any compulsion to go out and buy a really sharp axe. So again, I feel embarrased when I get praise for doing this. This whole process dating back to early November has been a cakewalk for me and all I am doing here is supplying some raw material.

The real praise goes to all those people who really work hard at this and ultimately to the one person who really is the bravest of all here, The anonymous guy I call Dave, the leukemia patient who is doing me the honor of accepting the stem cells I am offering.

WWJD

In less than a week I will have donated stem cells at a big hospital in a major American city. Within a day those same cells will be transplanted into someone who needs them to survive. In fact as I write this blog entry, that person has started the necessary procedures that will culminate in receiving my stem cells. The clock is running and the point of no return was yesterday.

I don't have any delusions that I am a hero or that I am saving someones life. The medical professionals involved are the real heroes. I'm just supplying some raw materials. I have been the recipient of a lot of praise that I feel is somewhat undeserved since all I am doing is getting some pretty big needles shoved into my arms and being uncomfortable for a few days. I'll get a few days off from work and all the ice cream I can eat. It isn't like donating a kidney or something. Everything I am offering will grow back in a couple weeks.

I am not a religious or even spiritual person. I don't pray to any deity, in fact I am dubious as to whether god exists in any form. I do know one thing. Jesus, if he did exist, mortal or divine, would do the same thing.

P.S. SNARK ALERT I was going to post an unflattering picture of Rush Limbaugh and write that I would reserve the right to ask for my stem cells back if I learned that they went to him. But... Jesus would not do that and besides the picture of Limbaugh just creeped me out.

A post for no other reason than posting.

I guess it's time to just list some of what has transpired in my so called life over the past year. I'm posting them for no other reason than to look back at them and ask myself, "Why the hell did I post that crap?"

First, My career is stuck to a glue board in the basement corner. It has pretty much stopped struggling and sits waiting for someone to bash it's brains in with something heavy. To say that I have made some strategic errors along the way would be akin to being nominated for the Golden Globe in the category of "duh!". 2008 is going to be a year of cutting my losses and hitting the reset button. On the other hand, being selected as a stem cell donor (coming up in less than 2 weeks) has been a much needed emotional boost and has done wonders for my self image. I haven't looked forward to being this uncomfortable in years. Someone close to me said that in the end, the gates to heaven would be wide open for me. Makes me wish I believed that those gates existed.

I lost a friend recently, actually I lost that friend a while ago but I'm just not very observant. Another reason to hit the reset button. Let me see...DABDA, yeah dabda. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally, acceptance. I am somewhere along that timeline, much closer to acceptance I think. Yeah, Acceptance with a side of anger, hold the depression and I'll take that to go.

On the plus side, I did get to re-find a friend from 30+ years ago, another one of the high school hallway invisibles, a friend who always accepted me, warts and all. I am looking forward to talking about more than 3 decades of adventures and broken hearts.

My 2008 resolutions:

-Remember old friends fondly.

-Make smarter decisions.

-Consider myself first but don't fail to give something back.

-Never vote Republican... or Democrat. Nowadays independent is no bargain either.

-Wear a sweater around the house instead of cranking up the heat.

-Rub the dog's belly and let the parrot fall asleep on my shoulder at least once a week.

-Hit the gym more often than I...Oh who the fuck am I kidding!

Waiting patiently

The timing seems to have been just right. The stem cell collection has been put off for a couple weeks since the patient (Dave, not his real name) is going through some other medical treatments that I assume would better prepare him for the transplant. The timing was right since I am just getting over one of those nasty, annoying January colds. My voice has been so raspy for the past week that I thought of auditioning for one of those movie trailer voice-over gigs.


I keep trying to get a perspective on this thing and try to imagine if I was the one who was in need of a marrow or stem cell transplant. Who knows, maybe someday I will be in need but it isn't today. After going through the most comprehensive health evaluation I have ever experienced including x-rays, an EKG, a CT scan and enough blood work to last the rest of my life, I can safely state that I am very healthy...at least physically anyway. So for the first time I have started to think about what happens after they collect (harvest?) my stem cells and transplant them. Is there anything else I could do that would make a difference?

So I wait patiently, drink lots of water and not so much beer. I keep away from aspirin or any other OTC drugs and hit the gym almost as often as I really need to.