Transplant day - Day 0

I woke up feeling wrecked yesterday with a headache, and all manner of aches and pains. But  no worries. 'Why?', you ask? Because yesterday I began my transplant (day 0). What is day 0? It is the day on which all of the chemo and radiation have been purged from my body, and the day on which my tabula rasa of a body gets a fresh infusion of stem cells. More to the point, it's the day the doctors save my life, because without stem cells, my body will no longer be able to produce healthy blood cells. So for me, it's a big day and a cause for celebration, and it coincidentally falls on Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday.

In the transplant unit, they refer to day 0 as your birthday. So now I have two birthdays - one in Sept and one on Feb 24. 

So how did the transplant happen? Well, a dewar filled with cryogenic liquid and plastic packets of my stem cells were brought out of the cryo-tank. The packets were then immersed in a warmer to prepare them for transplant.  About 5 minutes later, after a little prep work, I was infused by means of a drip IV. 

An interesting note is that the preservative used to keep the cells in suspension leaves a strange taste in your mouth. The flavor is not unlike oysters and garlic, though not in any way I'd consider pleasant. The docs recommend sucking on hard sour candy to get rid of the taste. That works fairly well.

 

The cryo-dewar holding my stem cells The warming unit (with green tag)

And that was it! The first half of the cells were infused yesterday - the second half will go in today. 

Now where are my Mardi Gras beads?