Started the day with blood collection then off to Infusion Therapy Clinic to have the dressing on the catheter changed. It had started bleeding during the night and the bandage was soaked with blood. They said to check with them if anything unusual happens to the site. The dressing was changed and they said this was not too unusual for this type of catheter because the lines are so large. They must be large to accept the Stem Cell Collection and the Transplant.

Next back to the Pheresis Clinic for today’s gathering. Yesterday’s collection was 570,000; at least we are over 1,000,000 now. I told Dr. Anderlini I was disappointed with the number today and he said it was about what he expected. He said the first day was a good collection and this was about what he felt would be more the numbers I would reach each day.

To give my white blood cells a bigger boost, Dr. Anderlini has added two shots a day of Leukine this is in addition to the four shots a day of the Neupogen. I must say I do look like a pincushion from all the shots. I do prefer giving myself these shots because I can do it at my convenience and do not have to spend as much time at the hospital waiting for them to do it. I have been giving myself my Procrit shots for several months now. Dr. Weber insisted I could do it and I said I had never given myself or anyone else a shot. She would not hear of it and said you will give yourself your shots. I found it is not all that hard. Now these are subcutaneous shots (into the muscle and fatty tissue and not a vein). A word of advise to anyone giving themselves a shot, let the vial or prepared shot sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes. The medication will not burn as badly if it is room temperature rather than straight out of the refrigerator. If you do not want to wait the 15 minutes, you can hold the medication in your hands for a few minutes and that will warm it up. Don’t shake it just hold it.

No collection tomorrow (Saturday) I will just rest and take the 6 shots. Then they want me to go in Sunday morning to the labs for a blood specimen collection and wait 1½ hours then go to the Emergency Room for the reading of the numbers. If there is a major problem with the numbers because of the new medication, they will contact a doctor for further instructions.

My Platelets have dropped to 114 because they are also being gathered with the stem cells. That is low but still manageable.