Full Spead Ahead!

Don's dressing was changed one more time in the night. There was no clear reason for the blood loss. But after she changed the dressing, Don's nurse sat with him and applied pressure to the incision for about 15 minutes and that did the trick. No more bleeding. One nurse speculated that something must have been nicked during the placement of his central venous catheter yesterday.

At home Sami slept soundly, while in the hospital Don slept so as not to pull on, or roll onto his catheter and bandage. Probably not a very good night of sleep, but this morning everything was a GO for the next step to begin, the collection of Don's healthy while blood cells (stem cells).

Sami returned to the hospital before the break of day. Mike, the Red Cross nurse, rolled in at 7:30 AM with the"pheresis" machine, which is really a small centrifuge that spins around separating the lighter white cells from the heavier red cells.

We enjoyed Mike, the Red Cross nurse who collected Don's cells. Before he hooked Don up he explained a little about the machine and the collection process.

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We chatted with each other and Mike while the machine made a whirring sound. The process took about four hours. Don felt nothing out of the ordinary, even though his entire blood supply was filtered four times. A bag filled with a murky pink liquid, The catheter is really two tubes which allows for the blood to go both in and out at the same time. Amazing!

I expect some one at the Red Cross is counting the cells while I write this. It usually takes several days to collect enough. The whole process will happen again tomorrow. We are tired, but the cats are happy to have Don back, and he is happy to be back, so all is well with the world.