Mike and Zacc reporting here. Read below to find out what the hell is going on in this photo.
We went in to Thomas Jefferson Hospital to donate our white blood cells for Dad on Thursday, October 11th. If they do their job, they'll beat up a bit on him but more on the cancer.
The first choice to make when you are about to do apheresis (harvesting of a certain part of the blood while returning the rest to where it came from: us) is which arm don't I want to bend for the next 8 hours. You are hooked up to two needles. The return is a normal needle but the out is a larger metal needle. Once that needle is in, say goodbye to that elbow for awhile.
They got started just fine on Zacc and he was pumping blood in no time. They gave me the foam blood drop and told me to squeeze. I squeezed a bit too hard (needles have never been my thing) and it turned out they couldn't get any blood out of me because my veins were so contracted from the over exertion. Third time and the bicep were the charm. In went the bigger needle as a nurse held my hand and I tried not to treat her like the blood foam drop.
So, to keep the blood flowing to the centrifuge, the tubes are lined with anti-coagulant. Good news is the blood keeps flowing; bad news is the anti-coagulant bonds to calcium in your body and that can make your extremities a bit tingly. Zacc couldn't feel his nose for awhile. And, my eye balls at times felt pressurized because we were getting lots of IV dripped in. Our jaws cramped a bit as we ate Tums to counteract our calcium loss. We also took straight calcium drips.
Zacc and I both went in with high hopes of doing work while donating. Those quickly dissolved into watching Breaking Bad, reading, one-handed texting, and bullshitting with the nurses (a Ritter hospital tradition). We each had our own nurse keeping an eye on our collection bag and tweaking the speed of the centrifuge accordingly. Our entire blood volume would cycle through the machine roughly 5 times that day. As the number of leukocytes in us lessened throughout the day, they had to spin faster to get them. But, you also don't want too much of the other blood components getting in so it was a bit like Goldi Locks and the Three Bears all day setting just the right speed. I thought the collection bags looked like 1-2-3 Jello with our plasma on top, leukocytes in the middle and typical looking blood on the bottom. Zacc thought that was gross.
I wrapped up in 8 hours and Zacc in a bit less. We both had enough leukocytes to give that we didn't have to donate again the next day. It sucks having to go to the bathroom not in a bathroom and with one hand but I had to manage with a drawn curtain. Zacc, the human camel, managed not to go all day... something the nurses said they had only seen one other time.
Our leukocytes were let loose inside Dad on Friday night around 6PM. Despite everything he's been through, Dad said he was a bit weirded out by the thought of our cells in him. Zacc went first to get a head start on hide and seek and me second. Dad has felt the effects all weekend and says he now has a bond with our childhood living room where we rough housed all day. We're sure they're being much, much harder on Dad's cancer cells.
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