1 hour information session

Lee and I had the 1 hour information session over the phone this past Wednesday. I think we ended up talking for about an hour and 20 minutes. What took the longest was we went through all of the consent forms and he explained to me what each form meant. These were the forms that asked for my permission to be part of this and that study so Lee went thoroughly through them with me to make sure I was still okay with signing them.

He started off with asking me if I had any questions. I did have a couple so that took a little extra time. One concern of mine was how I'd go to the bathroom during the donation because I was told you had to lay pretty still the entire time so I was afraid I'd have to get catheterized. Luckily, that's not the case. What I learned is that we really only have to keep one arm fairly still. I believe the arm that is receiving the blood back after it has been sent through the machine can be moved around a bit. So I'll get a bed pan or commode lol... much better than being cathed though.

We started talking about the recipient; there isn't much information he's allowed to tell me. All that I know is she's a 45 year old female with acute myelogenous leukemia and she lives within the United States.

I'll be going for the physical on Friday, October 19th. The physical will probably take 2-3 hours because of all the different places I'll have to go. I'll get an EKG, a urinalysis, a chest xray, a health history will be taken and so on and so fourth. About a week after, Lee should be notified if I've been cleared to continue on with the donation.

Since the donation will take place on November 14th, my recipient will begin preparation on November 5th. She'll receive chemo and/or radiation and she will be admitted to the hospital the day before the donation. They are severely weakening her immune system and preparing her to receive my stem cells. Although I have the option to back out at any time, they do request that I try to make my decision before she begins preparation; if not, her immune system will be so weakened from the meds that she'll have major complications or won't be able to recover. For some people this might be an issue and I'm sure that would create more guilt than anyone could handle if they backed out when it was too late for their recipient, so if you're teetering with the idea of going through with this, make sure you're sure. For me, there was never any question.

5 days before the donation, I'll begin receiving an injection of a medication called filgrastim (Neupogen^®). This medication stimulates white blood cell production. They said I'd probably experience some bone pain and fatigue. They will arrange for a visiting nurse to come to me and do the injection each day. The last day will also be the donation day, so when I go in, I'll receive the last injection before they start the process. I was told to avoid any aspirin products for the bone pain because this will thin my blood while filgrastim may cause thrombocytopenia which is a decrease in platelets. When platelets are decreased, this causes a slower rate of blood clotting so you'd be more likely to have bleeding occur. Adding aspirin into this mix would not help the cause, thus it's important to use nonaspirin products.

On donation day, I'll likely have to show up around 7am. I'll be there for 4-6 hours and I'll produce a bag of stem cells and the bag will be hand-delivered to the patient at her location. She'll receive the stem cells the way a blood transfusion would occur. The first 100 days are the most critical for her recovery. Lee said that when I get my first update, hopefully it will be around 30 days after the transplant, I shouldn't be surprised if I find out she has some sort of infection which would be a result of the immunosuppressants. In an ideal world, what they would like to see is that in the first 3-5 weeks her biopsy results show that she's producing 100% of my blood cells. Although it's not usually 100%, they want to see a huge percentage of my blood cells that are being produced and a much lower number of her own.

Lee will begin checking in on me either on the day of the donation or the day after and track my recovery. He'll check in again around day 7 and until I'm back to feeling like myself again. Then around 1 month he will contact me and hopefully he'll have an update for me. After that I won't hear from him again for about 6 months, then 1 year. For the first year, I will only be allowed anonymous contact with my recipient and after 1 year, the NMDP steps aside and will allow us to disclose however much or little information we would like with one another. I know that I would be beyond thrilled to be able to meet my recipient and hear about her progress. I do hope that she'll feel the same way. I hope that the stem cells will take and she will be able to continue on with her life and live in good health and happiness.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this 45 year old woman that I know nothing about. I wonder about how she's feeling, what she's going through, if she has kids and how old they are. Who is taking care of her? Siblings? Parents? Children? I wonder what she looks like, what hardships she's faced in her life and I wonder about her faith. In my experience, being around people that are at the end of their life or are battling a life threatening illness, they are often able to find God or find comfort in religion. When she receives the stem cells, will she realize what an amazing gift she's been given from God? This certainly isn't my doing. God created me and God created her, and He made us similar... similar enough that my cells are like hers and hers are like mine so she could receive this donation. There is nothing heroic or special about what I'm going to do; this is an act of love and an act of God. I just feel so blessed that God has chosen me and is using me to work in someone elses life and for this, I'm grateful. My goal in life is to live for Jesus and exalt Him in all that I do. God is giving me the opportunity to do that.