This morning was very busy as I walked over with Sam to his radiation appointment at 7:15-7:30 am, waited for him to get settled, and then headed off to the apheresis lab, which thankfully was just 2 flights up.  And Nurse Katie, from Radiation, did me a solid by getting me a breakfast sandwich and delivering it 👊🏼. 

My tiny veins were in great hands with Nurse Wally. He is an exceptional nurse! He accessed my right arm at my elbow and then returned the blood to my left arm through a large vein near my wrist.  I could move my left arm through the 4.5 hours but my right had to stay still. 

I also learned that my 15+ year commitment to hydrating daily stood me and my tiny veins in good stead too: tiny veins that aren’t well-hydrated tend to “disappear” and that makes it harder for the apheresis machine.  Tiny, well-hydrated veins get the job done!

I watched Everything, Everywhere, all at Once which was extraordinary. If you havent watched it, you should.

During the 4.5 hours, the machine processed 14 L of blood and isolated 322 ml of leukocytes. At 12:30 pm, Cat, the scientist who is going to process my leukocytes to isolate just the t-cells, arrived.  She was a bit early as Dr. Klein had requested and additional half hour to get a few more mls.  Wally told me that it is a requirement of the clinical trial that the scientist transports the donation her/himself to the lab: no intermediaries are allowed. 

These t-cells are the ones that will “teach” Sam’s t-cells to not react (in a Petri dish) and then he will get a “boost” of them on Day 35 post transplant (the “T-Allo10” clinical trial).  

after the apheresis, I had a pretty decent headache but it was gone by 6 pm or so.

Thursday I start my GCSF shots (1/day for 5 days) to get my bone marrow to overproduce stem cells.  Apheresis #2 to remove the stem cells will be Monday 3/27/23. 💪🏼

#FULeukemia

#TeamSamStrong