My Experience

I was at a conference where people from the National Bone Marrow Registry spoke to publicize their drive to sign people up to see if they might be stem cell donation candidates. Doctors are using stem cells from one person and put into another person with cancer in clinical trials to see if it would help with the disease. I was up for the first step: they swabbed cells from my mouth with a Q-tip and that was that.

A year later, I got a call: “we think you’re a match.” They asked me to come in for tests. I went to the Red Cross Center and they drew several vials of blood. Months and months went by without me hearing anything. Finally, they called again, and they said they had completed the Stage Two testing and wanted me to come in for Stage Three testing. I was told if it turned out I could be a donor, then I would be donating to a 47 year-old male lymphoma patient who did not live in the US. They sent me a video to watch about the donation procedure and I also had a consultation phone call with a person working for the donation organization. Also, I signed release forms.

Several weeks later I went into Duke’s Center for adult bone marrow transplants for a basic physical: more blood drawn, an EKG and chest x-ray. Also, the doctor went over the risks with me again: flu-like symptoms usually, rare spleen enlargement. At that point, I was approved for being a match and they worked out a schedule for the donation. My procedure was called Peripheral bone marrow stem cell collection. It is also known as allogenic stem cell transplant donation. First, they gave me two rounds of shots of Neupogen over four days to boost my stem cell count. I had it in my arm three times and belly once. The belly hurt a lot, arms less so. The shots gave me joint pain, muscle pain and headache. The fifth day they do the apheresis, where they take blood, spin it in a centrifuge, extract the plasma with the stem cells in it, and the rest of the blood is returned back into my body. The day started at 7 am. I got my last Neupogen shot. Then I went to breakfast, giving the Neupogen time to kick in. Then I went back to the outpatient clinic. I sat in a recliner chair. They inserted IVs into both arms. They adjusted the machine so that blood was drawn out of one arm, sent to the centrifuge, the blood was warmed and sent back into me. They gave me Ativan to calm me as I was scared, and I watched a DVD. They whole process lasted six hours. I also got a calcium drip to prevent limb tingling from having an IV in for a long time. I had lunch during the procedure (a tuna on whole wheat from Subway). At the end, they unhooked me. They gave me a prescription for Vicodin and then I went home. I went to bed, woke up feeling tired and a little achy. It took me a week to feel normal. I will have a follow-up blood test to make sure my platelets and white blood cell count is normal.