Stem Cell collection

Hi  and welcome to our corner of the Online Community.

Looking good my friend, never did get to see the magic machine as my team could not get me into the position of harvesting so I made my brother go through this a number of times.......... funny thing was at the very start I had no idea how many stem cells were required so I promised him £1 for every cell he gave me - he now lives on his own Pacific Island lol.

You may find this thread good to have a look at Checklist for SCT Unit.

Have you been told what conditioning your team will use to take down your immune system before you get your cells back?

What SCT Unit are you having the transplant done in?

If you want a laugh on us have a look at Amusing stories from your SCT journey

When you get your arms back!!......... try putting some information in your profile. This really helps others when answering. It also means that you don't have to keep repeating yourself. Just click on YOUR username, select 'Edit Profile'. Put as much or as little in your profile and you can amend it at any time - you can see members profiles by hitting our forum names.

We are around to walk this with you.

A great view of the machines! Hope you didn’t feel hungry or thirsty or need to go to the loo! 

hugs xxx

Way to go Steve!

Really glad the collection went well. To be honest, I hated it (all in my head though!) 

Here’s hoping you get a smooth run through the rest of the transplant process.

Greg

Hi Greg,

I'm not sure what to fully expect on the next bit and it would be good to know.

I know that I large dose of chemo and then they put my stem cells back and wait for my white blood cell count to get to a certain level before letting me leave hospital.

It would be good to know experiences of you and others of the next stage.

I hope to take photos and vid  of my next bit.

All the best,

Steve

Hi Moomy,

I have a great wife and she fed and watered me.

As for the loo they will let you take a 2min break for that, but you remain tied to the machine so its a bottle or pan.

Hugs back xxx

Thanks Mike!

I will sort out my profile this weekend.

Hi again Steve, the simple description you gave about the SCT process is spot on - If you look at some of our profiles you will see our journeys were rather different....... expect the unexpected is a good way to look at it.

An Auto is less complicated as your body will not see your cells as an attack on your body so will not try to kill them off. An Allo with donor cells can prove problematic as the new cells can be seen as a attack so the patient has to be on some rather disgusting drugs to suppress the immune system for the first 3-4 months post SCT.

The time you are in the unit will depend on the conditioning and how quick your counts come up. I was in 28 days for my first Allo then 29 days for my second........ I was actually sent home with my counts still low but they said it was safer for me to be out of the hospital as there were a few bugs going around the hospital.

Post SCT recovery can be so different but again you just take each day as it comes .

Hi again Steve,

yes the chemo can be rather tough as the intention is to give your system a re-boot, so the chemo will take it down and your cells will get it all started back again. 

it’s all do-able though..... there are a couple of threads that might help, depending on the regime they use, Melphalan is a right pain, but is really effective. 

Hugs xxx

Hi Steve,

The auto SCT process is a strange one. As Moomy says, if you’re having Melphalan as part of conditioning, that is not so nice, but the side effects only lasted for a couple of days for me. The process of the cells going in is anti-climactic as it’s just like a blood transfusion, but nevertheless it’s still very symbolic and quite emotional. Then for me, the major problem I had was boredom. I was really lucky in that I didn’t pick up any infections. I remember feeling quite weak and slept a lot but there was nothing major that I had to go through - I was discharged pretty quickly (Day 12) as soon as my WBC started to rise.

I think it’s helpful to prepare yourself for a major procedure (it is after all) but the best advice i have is to go with the flow, let the medical teams do what they do, and take lots of things in with you to keep you occupied.

Here’s hoping it all goes really well Steve and please keep us updated as to how you get along.

Greg

Hi Greg,

Thanks for the insight of how it was for you, it is really helpful to get an insight from someone who is not a nurse or doc.

Hope life is good for you now and I will give updates once it all starts on the 16th Dec.

All the very best,

Steve