When I was a little girl ... about 4-5 years old.... our nana would take my sister and I to the Harvest Festival at the local church in Castle Donington. There would be vegetables and flowers all over the church. Displays made out of seeds, fruit and vegetables. I don't remember much else about it. Just that cool, calm feeling in the church, voices echoing, the sunlight shining through the stained glass windows.... and my nana holding my hand so I wouldn't do my normal disappearing act, which I always did if i was free of a hand. My grand-dad was a market gardener, so Harvest Festival was always an occasion that was close to nana's heart.That was all I knew about "harvesting" until this past week......
This latest harvesting experience was not about vegetables or flowers though. It was about plasma..... white blood cells... and stem cells. Building up the amounts so they could be sucked out of me and put on ice. So that in a few weeks I can have them put back in. This is the new harvesting in my life.
The flu like symptoms were the worst on Saturday. Fever, aches, headache, bone pain. It was awful. I went to bed wrapped up with PJ's on, electric blanket on and heater on. This was still not enough. At 2:30 am I was still awake and not feeling good at all. I had a temperature of 38.6C at one point. But most of the night it stayed around 37.5 - 38C. I woke up in the morning soaked through.... I had sweated so badly overnight, I'm surprised I hadn't given myself an electric shock from the electric blanket !! .... But I actually felt good. I got up and had a hot shower.... by the time I had changed and freshened up I was really feeling 100% better. The injections over the week were administered by Dirk. He became really good at it. One tip.... don't rush the injections. It is less painful by just taking the time to do it slowly and easily. The bone pain became manageable eventually with paracetamol. I had to walk slowly as any jerking on the body sent pain through your skeletal system. Mainly the sternum, ribs and spine area. A little in my legs - not much in arms or anywhere else. But I did get neck pain and head spins from moving my head too quickly.
So as I said... Sunday I was feeling pretty good. We decided to go and look at a couple of wedding venues in the Swan Valley. It was a beautiful sunny day. Although it was a bit cheesy with all the stretch limo's, Wedding singers, cake decorators, wedding planners...etc ...etc... we did have a laugh. AND... we think we may have found a venue..... and a date !! WAHOO !!! It's actually feeling a little bit more exciting now. I think I could get into the wedding planning shite... Onto Monday....7am we were on the road to pathology for the blood tests. Hospital, blood testing and potential harvesting day.... I say "potential" because based on the blood test results, the actual harvesting may or may not take place. There is a three day window for the harvesting, so if the blood results are not good enough on the first day, then they send you home to continue with the injections and repeat the process the next day. My blood test results were good so I was in for the harvesting.
I also met another MM patient that I had met the week prior - he was on exactly the same cycle as me. We saw him at pathology and then in the Haematology Care Centre we got to chatting. (and swapped numbers) He had also had a rough weekend. Infact the symptoms had resulted in him going to Emergency on Saturday night with the fever, sweating and bone pain. Unfortunately the emergency department did not see his condition as an emergency and did not attend to him at all. He ended up leaving and going home.... this is not a good sign for the future !!
I was hooked up at about 10am onto Frieda and my new friend was across the room hooked up onto Agnetha. The cannula's went int easily and we were off...... well not quite. every time my nurse walked away. Frieda had a meltdown and red lights started flashing.... and my blood stopped flowing. When on this machine you have to sit with both arms straight. No bending as this sties the blood flow. The only thing that stopped this from happening was if I sat up straight. No slumping. I was laughing saying that mum must have been watching as I was always in trouble for slouching !! So after a disastrous first hour I was up and running. My mate across the room already had plasma collected in his "drip bag" ..... I was jealous as mine was still empty. Where's the fun without a bit of competition? But we were on our way......
The next five hours were not fun..... as I couldn't move, it gradually became more and more difficult. On top of the fact that I was to stay as still as possible, I also started to react to the anti-coagulant that they transfused back into me along with the left over blood after the stem cell's were skimmed off. The reaction to this was a pins and needles like feeling throughout my body, but mainly in my face, neck, legs and thighs. I was warned that I could get this reaction and that my lips tingling would be the sign. As I am such a brave thing and the tingling did not start in my lips, I may have been delayed in telling my nurse that this was happening. And so by the time I was hooked up to the added calcium infusion to assist in the tingling, my body was crawling..... and I still couldn't move. This all happened around 12:30pm. Little did I know that I still had another four hours of harvesting to sit through.
Needless to say I was pretty uncomfortable for the next few hours. I managed to hold back a pee until around 3pm, but realising that I still had a while to go, I asked for the commode to be rolled in. A little embarrassing, but at least I didn't have wind or need a <cough> number two !! The tingling / pins and needles did not subside after the 1st litre of calcium, so I had to have another litre bag out into the IV. Finally at 4:20pm we had collected enough plasma / white blood cells / stem cells to be considered a "good collection." We had reached "target". The cannula's were removed and O...M...G.... I was finally able to move my arms. They were soooo numb. I was tired, headachy and stiff. I was the last one out.
During the collection, I was also able to chat to the Nurse Practitioner about the stem cell implant phase. We set a date for the implant and I got all of my questions answered.
I have to say the nurses and staff at the haemo clinic are really amazing. They give personal care and never make you feel like just another patient. Names are remembered as are previous conversations and snippets of information. My implant starts on 30th July.....
And so I returned home.... and have spent the past two days at home sleeping and relaxing. I got a call yesterday to say the quality of my collection was good and I was not required to go back in. This was also good news as I had to continue the growth hormone injections just in case I would have to go back in.
Today was the first day in 165 days that I have not had to take any cancer related drugs.... and it has been a good feeling day.
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