I am blogging direct from the Apheresis Center at the City of Hope in Duarte, California. There’s a large machine to my left that makes ticking noises and—hopefully—is drawing blood from one of the catheters in my Hickman Port. The stem cells are then removed and the remaining blood is returned through the other catheter in the Hickman Port.
There was some question about whether this would happen today. You see, my daily Neupogen injections are supposed to stimulate my white blood cell production and therefore my plasma stem cell production. The goal is for my stem cell production to be above 10, and if it’s lower than that, there’s no point in doing the collection.
So earlier this morning they drew some blood to test my CD34 level. It was….
102.00.
This is superheroic performance, though the nurse declined to tell me if I had set a new world record. In any case, this is great news for two reasons. First, it means no more Neupogen shots. Second, it means that I’m likely to be finished here in two or three days. Yippee!
And this surely demands a treat for everyone. So here’s some bonus catblogging. As you can see, Hilbert has cleverly used staircase access to perch himself on the top of Karen’s bookcase, where he is lord of all he surveys. As usual.
