APRIL 7

Today was Gary's first day to start collecting his stem cells. We arrived at the clinic at 8am and within 20 minutes, the nurses had him connected to the machine. The disappointing news was he would still have to receive the two growth shots (G-CSF)each day of this process.The next 5 hours was spent just waiting ..... and waiting...

For the machine to take out his blood ... separate the red blood cells, plasma and stem cells ... store the stem cells ... and then circulate the red blood cells and plasma back into his body.

The end result is this little bag of stem cells! They tag it, send it directly to the lab for them to count how many cells were harvested and then they will freeze it.
They hope to collect a million cells a day, but are happy with what they call .5. Later in the day, the Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) Nurse Coordinator called to say that Gary only produced .22 so he needed to go back to the hospital at 8pm to get a shot of a new drug called Plerixafor.

This drug has just been approved this past February, and they have nothing but good things to say about it. It helps push the stem cells in the bone marrow out into the blood stream so they can be collected. Before this drug was available, Gary would have had to go in tonight and received 2 more G-CSF shots, which are painful. Although this drug is also administered in his belly, it is not painful. All in all, it was an uneventful day. Gary slept most of it. *smile*.

So, how can you pray for Gary? Pray that he will produce the desired amount of stem cells each day. He needs a total of 5 million or more. He will have to go every day and receive the two G-CSF shots and possibly every evening for the Plerixafor until he meets this amount.