Being the Match, Part V

And so, Donation Day was upon us. 
Monday, May 15, 2017.
5am

I woke up and for the first time since I started the process to see if I was a match, felt the nerves and butterflies hit.

I posted on Facebook:

Here we go!
The nerves, the reality and the emotion of what I'm about to do finally hit this morning, but I am still very excited to be here and to be a match out of what I am told was 15 million possible bone marrow donors registered by Be the Match.

Today, I get to Be the Match and have the opportunity to save someone's life!

Plus, I get to spend all day in bed.
(Clearly, I wrote this before the day got completely underway)

More poking and prodding.
They had trouble finding a good vein in my left arm.
Fourth try was the charm.
My left arm looks like I just took a United Airlines flight.

Loved the disclaimer of "we're done poking and prodding "for now" LOL

More lab work, then waiting for results, before going on to the next step.

This part was interesting. They collected the samples, then sent them via a chute to another part of the hospital to be tested.
Very similar to a drive thru at the bank.

So I am laying here fairly comfortably, and starting this blog.



I'm in the same unit where other procedures such as dialysis are performed, and I think, I could be saving someone just like the people in here.

After the final injection to boost my cell counts around 8am, I had about an hour break while we waited for the injection to boost my numbers one final time, so I went to the cafeteria to check out some breakfast before I was tied to the bed for the next 5-6 hours or so.

They told me I would have one hand free to Netflix, text, email, etc, but to my surprise it's my left hand that is the free one, and my right arm needs to stay in the same position. This will be an interesting learning experience as I am very severely right hand dominant! I thought it would be my left hand, but as it was explained, the strongest vein in "anyone" is the one in the middle of your right arm.

Just after 9am, I was hooked up to everything and the blood began flowing out of my right arm, into the Apheresis machine where they separated the blood, kept what they wanted (white blood cells/stem cells), and then put what they didn't want/need (red blood cells and platelets) back into my left arm.

It was quite the computer, was constantly monitoring both arms with all the connectors, and it even screams when something needs to be adjusted.  As well, it calculates the speed of transfer and how long the entire process will take. The original estimation was about 8 hours (of being connected) but it ended up being right around the 6 hour mark.

It constantly monitored the blood intake and outtake, along with vital stats - blood pressure, pulse, etc. In one of the funnier moments of the day (there were many), the machine screamed, and the nurse came running "Oh you're not breathing that's all" as she looked at the machine and back at me - as I was very clearly breathing and not under any respiratory distress.

Through this experience, I've gained a new respect and appreciation for the person I am donating to and my Dad and others like them go through on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis when it comes to being poked, prodded, injected and virtually tied to chair or bed for their treatment as tests or treatment is received. For me it was one day.

Additionally, don't take the use of your dominant hand for granted. Today, I am learning how to type and use my left hand for 100% of everything, as I learn to ignore my excessively dominant right hand and arm. When everything was disconnected later in the afternoon, the reverse occurred; I had to keep telling myself it was OK to finally use my right hand and arm.

The left hand thing was a struggle for me all day long.
I brought tons of magazines to read when I got bored with the IPad, but the left hand struggle was enough that I didn't read any of them after I lost the use of my right hand. It was just too hard to hold them up and read.

I ended up catching up on nearly all the tv shows I was behind on. Note for next time: Take care when watching medical dramas like Chicago Fire, Chicago Med and Grey's Anatomy, and you are physically in a hospital. A climactic ending scene in one of those shows caused me to gasp out loud.

I had little problems with typing on the Ipad, but the IPhone was another story. How do you left handers do it? My fingers would not stretch across the width of the phone, making it very hard to type and text!

Around 12pm, I got hungry for lunch. Lunch was paid for by Be the Match. Since I was tied to the bed and couldn't run out to Sonic, the nurse took my order and then went to the cafeteria and returned a while later: Turkey Burger with Tator Tots, and Tomato Basil Soup. With only the use of my single left arm and hand, this proved to be a very interesting learning experience:

1..Soup with a single hand is difficult, if not impossible. A spoon doesn't cut it. You tend to drop the spoonful before it ever makes it to your mouth.
I ended up sipping the soup like a cup of coffee.

2..Sandwiches are much easier if cut in half to hold with a single hand, but even then I gave up on leaving it a sandwich about halfway through, and just took the burger out and ate it.

The first hour seemed to be the worst, followed by the last hour, as far as being bored and stuck in bed, and not being able to move much at all.

In between that, time seemed to pass OK, as I was distracted by my TV watching. Really the only "side effects" I felt were a sore back and sore legs from the injections and staying in bed for so long without the ability to adjust my position by myself, as my right arm had to stay immobilized.

Approximately 6 hours later, with a few pit stops in between (thanks to all the water I was drinking and the saline they were pumping me full of), the procedure was finished. I had been OK standing up a few times during the day to use the "restroom," but by the time I got after the 6 hours mark, my legs felt quite weak so much so that I sat back down on the bed real quick to the point of almost falling back onto the bed. I had to wait a couple of minutes before I felt steady enough to walk on my own. The first thing I did once I gained my land legs back:  How nice it was to walk and use a real bathroom!

At this point, I had been disconnected from all the machines, and the bag of stem cells was about 75% full. A courier came and picked up the bag as she did nurse said "Wave bye to your stem cells" which I thought was funny so I did. Now, just had to wait for the final blood numbers to come back to see if my numbers had begun dropping from their supercharged states. Once they had - I was free to go.

We went out to dinner that night, and within a few hours I felt safe to drive myself again.

By 8pm that night - I felt normal for the first time since the injections and the soreness had definitely decreased, and would fully disappear over the next few days.

What impact would this have on me?
To be continued in the final blog post, Part VI.