(14) Stem Cell Birthday

The day I had been waiting for, working towards!

Watching the harvesting of my cells, the complexity involved made me keen to get them back again. The harvesting took 3 hours, getting them back took about 20 minutes.

We were driven to Hospital Angeles on Sunday 16th March, it was about 10 minutes from the clinic and fairly quiet. Possibly because it was a Sunday (in Mexico) or perhaps it's a specific area for clinic patients.

We were led to a room and hooked to our cells via the central catheter. It was well monitored by a room full of medical staff. It seemed to be over in no time and our carers were back in a flash. (they weren’t allowed in during this stage)

We were then chauffeured to the Haematology clinic to celebrate our stem cell birthday, we were gifted a HSCT Warrior T-shirt and now get to have cake twice a year!!!

We also get to have our central catheter removed (thank goodness)

I was nervous about having the catheter removed, it was placed under full anaesthesia after all. It was causing a lot of pain, not at the front where the port was located, but more so the back/shoulder muscle where it ran through. It was good to have for the Harvesting, Chemo & Replacement, means no additional IVs which was pleasant given I was still bruised from the failed attempts pre theatre.

The removal was quick and painless, the doctor took out the 3 stitches placed through theatre and pulled out the catheter, the pressure applied for the few minutes that followed was the worst of it. Thank goodness its gone, the pain vanished all most instantly!

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