More about the Transplant

What a day Tuesday was!

Mom and I started our day at 5:15am…. With Nupogen injections and gulping coffee, since I couldn’t have anything to do drink after 5:30am, and were sitting in the waiting room by 7:30am. Anticipation of something scary is sometimes worse than the actual event, and my fear and anticipation was getting worse as we sat there, until 8:00am, when they finally called my name.

After getting into those ever fashionable hospital gowns, I laid on the bed and waited for mom to be allowed to come back. At least they let me keep my K.A.S.T. T-shirt on underneath the hospital gown… at least that was one part of me that wouldn’t be hanging out all over the place while I was on the table.

I had told the doctor of my ridiculous fear of needles and he promised I would be heavily drugged.. I relaxed a little, either because I trusted him, or because of the drugs that were then inserted into my IV. As they rolled me to the O.R. I gave Mom my final instructions.. when I got back I wanted Starbucks… Caramel Macchiato. Mom insists I was slurring my words at this point, but I was thinking perfectly clearly, could hear myself perfectly clearly and truly believe she was imagining things.

In the meantime, Kerrie was upstairs and worried about me…

After entering the O.R. the nurse gave me a little more sedation and they asked if they could prep me or if I needed more sedation … I asked what “prepping” would involve and, since there were no needles, I gave them to go ahead. The doctor came in and gave the OK to give me even more sedation and he then explained to me how he would locate the vein in my groin, using ultrasound and how the whole procedure would last about 15 minutes. He asked if I was ready.. I asked if he was going to give me more sedation.. he said no.. and I think I said something like “OK.. well I guess I’m ready then.”

I remember the ultrasound, and it seemed like it was taking a long time, and I am pretty sure I asked him if he was having a hard time finding it and needed some help :)  He passed on my offer of help, though I am sure he appreciated it! The only other things I remember are a small pin prick, which must have been the Local.. another small prick, which must have been the catheter and then a tug.. which must have been the stitches. I waited for mom, in the recovery room, and was happy to see her come in.. but no caramel macchiato.

It was then time to take me to the room where the actual transplant would be done.. on the way, I think I was saying something about the gurney ride being the new ride at Cedar Point next year. Dad and Joyce had arrived by this time and came to the room as well. Dad stayed with me and mom went to check on Kerrie. With a little help from Dad, I called Kerrie to let her know that I was alright… she sounded so relieved to hear from me and said she had been worried all morning, but was happy to finally hear from me. Teena Taylor was also waiting with her… Thanks Teena for spending your whole day with Kerrie and I and for waiting with Kerrie while I was in the O.R.

It was 10:30am when they hooked me up to the machine and turned it on.. and I finally got my caramel macchiato. Basically, they took my blood from one tube in the catheter.. spinned it around in this big machine, took the stem cells they needed and then put my blood back through the other tube in the catheter. I couldn’t feel any of this, but had long tubes running out of me.. and over me..that had my blood running through it to and from a big machine.

I slept through most of the procedure.. mostly because I was still pretty drugged from the catheter insertion. Dad stayed with me the whole day, while Mom and Ted stayed with Kerrie.. and Ron and Teena rotated between being with me and being with Kerrie. I tried to stay awake, so that I could at least entertain the people who were sitting in the room with me, but it was no use. I think Dad and Teena kept themselves entertained by taking pictures of me with their cell phones. Dad kept threatening to send them to James to have them put on the web page and I was too out of it to fight about it… so, James… if my father gets those pics to you DESTROY them 🙂

While I layed in a bed on the 13th floor, Kerrie was in her room on the 2nd floor. She spent her day walking the floor of her unit, taking a shower, playing Othello with Mom and worrying about me.

We finished the stem cell collection around 2:30 and I was then taken to a recovery room, on the 16th floor, to wait to see if they had collected enough. I should definitely be the poster child for Starbucks… although I slept through most of the procedure, I had my Starbucks close by at all time.. as they wheeled me from the procedure room to the recovery room I was laying on the gurney.. sipping my Starbucks. We even have pictures of me being rolled through the halls… Starbucks in hand. Maybe I’ll send a few of the pics to them 🙂

We were told they would need 3 million stem cells and if there weren’t enough we would do the procedure again on Wednesday… and off they went to count them. They explained how they did this with some kind of laser, but I had images of them sitting at a table hand counting millions of stem cells.

While we waiting in the recovery room, Dad and Teena sat with me and Ron ran across the street to get me my first meal of the day… KFC Mashed Potatoes and a chicken leg. They go great with Starbucks.. especially when you’ve been sleeping on and off for 8 hours and are still heavily drugged… at 4:00pm, shortly after I finished my wonderful caramel macchiato, Izzy walked in and gave me the final count… 5 million 6 hundred thousand stem cells. Whoo Hoo! Almost twice what they needed. Go ME! Izzy took the catheter out and I have to give her some great credit.. she kept me so preoccupied with taking a deep breath to get ready to have it taken out that she took it out without my even knowing. Great job Izzy!. Even though I was still kind of out of it, I remember Izzy made some comment about the fact they had to shave me before installing the catheter and I think I said something like ” Yeah.. if I’d known the hospital offered those kind of services I would have scheduled a Brazilian wax and a pedicure while I was at it.” Leave it to me to have some kind of joke comment…even in the middle of all this…

Mom got me dressed, Izzy got a wheelchair and we headed to Kerrie’s room, hoping to make it just in time for the actual transplant. When we got there, they had just hung the bag of blood and were getting ready to start. I think Dr. Jana, Dad and the rest of the transplant team were surprised to see us there so fast ( probably because I was supposed to be resting… but we didn’t want to miss it).
Just as they connected the bag of blood, and started giving her the transfusion, we started singing happy birthday to her and the transplant team gave her a birthday card. It’s kind of cool how they consider this a second birthday… even more so, since Kerrie’s actual birthday falls on the 17th of January. It was fitting that we were able to do it on the 17th.

Because they had to pre-medicate Kerrie to receive the blood , she fell asleep almost as soon as it was done… it had been a long day and I don’t think anyone blamed her for sleeping. Especially not me… I was dosing off, sitting in the wheel chair, while I was next to her.

Later that night, Mom and I returned to the guest apartment at the hospital and I felt really bad for mom. She’s had such a long summer… an incredibly long day… and then to top it all of she has to push me two blocks in a wheelchair… through the dark , through the cold and through the wind.

The day was finally over, but Kerrie’s fight is just beginning.

The next two weeks will be very critical as we’ll wait to see if my immune system will accept her body. The best way to explain this is that she has been given my immune system. What’s the job of the immune system? To fight off the enemy… to my immune system her entire body is the enemy, so she will have anti-rejection drugs for a while ( at least 6 months) and they will have to watch for signs of problems in her lungs, heart, kidneys, liver, etc. The next few weeks could be the roughest yet, but things should start to improve after that.

Keep those cards, prayers and warm fuzzies coming. She’s going to need all the support we can give her in the next few weeks.

Jenn