Stem cell harvest success!
30 March 2017
Its been a rough couple of days. About 2 days ago Jason started to get a really sore throat. He started to feel the fatigue and burn from the radiation quite badly in his throat and it was causing him quite a bit of discomfort. He was having trouble swallowing, eating, taking his medicine, and is finding it hard to keep on top of the pain relief.
So Wednesday morning we had some blood tests at haematology outpatient and managed to get his transplant coordinator to squeeze him in for an appointment so that we could get his throat checked and ask about more pain relief. We pretty much ended up telling them that we could not give him the pain relief that he needed to be comfortable, so they admitted him into the bone marrow transplant unit at Christchurch hospital at 9.
Jason had three litres of fluids pumped into him. He was very dehydrated which was making a hard for them to be able to pull blood out for his tests. It's good that he is in his own room atm as he is pretty tired, and sometimes it is quite hard being sick and feeling like crap in the shared rooms. Not only are you dealing with hearing other patients deal with their treatment, but you are also dealing with their families dealing with the treatment. It sometimes gets on top of you. Also when you're most want quiet you'll never get it.
Jason spent most of the day and hospital sleeping and taking quite a bit of morphine to get on top of his pain levels. Today, Thursday, he was able to have the stem cell harvest done. This is a machine that removes the blood from his entire body 3 times over 2 needles that are inserted into his arms.
What the machine does is spins the stem cells out of Jason's blood and separates out the plasma and then the blood circulates back into his body. This does make him feel tired and the blood machine is pulling iron and calcium out of his body too, so he will be feeling really tired tonight and is admitted for another night at hospital so they can keep an eye on him.
So as you can imagine both Jason and I are feeling very grateful that the harvest could go ahead and that we are another week closer to finding out exactly what is going on.
Jason's parents have sold their home up north and are moving into our house today. It will be good to have some support while he is going through this recovery phase from the radiation and also the recovery from the harvest. We are feeling very blessed to be able to have them with us while we go through this journey.
So I'm tired, I'm stressed, I'm over dealing with Christchurch hospital park and ride and all the other car parking issues that come along with being at hospital but we are getting there day by day, and continue to appreciate everything that everyone is doing for us.
I better go back to the hospital room. Jason has 3 New Zealand Blood Service ladies with him that are looking after him and making sure that the stem cell harvest goes smoothly. I'm just a bystander keeping a smile on Jason's face and waiting for him to be unhooked so I can snuggle up for a cuddle. I leave you with a picture of Jas cracking a joke with the nurses. Of course Jason is still spinning a yarn!