November 26, 2013.. When we got to Infusion 4 this morning, emergencies were all around. Three patients where having problems and they had called EMS for them. The nurse told us later they were all admitted to the hospital. It was really hectic at one time with the nurses running to help. One of them said the chemo is really hard on the body. We had seen EMS taking people out before but never three at once.  

My white cell count today was 11.79, hemoglobin-9.9, platelet-182. and HPC-2. This is the best move my white cell count has made during this collection effort.

Today, I received one liter of saline by iv and a medication by iv to reduce uric acid. This process is causing high uric acid.  

When we got back from the hospital today, the lady from Little Rock Church that we rent the apartment from had left us gift cards to a restaurant to use at Thanksgiving. We have so many things to be thankful for, we will have to add this one to our list too. It seems like they just can't do enough for patients staying here. 

Angela and Gordon asked a question yesterday, so I will try to explain more about the blood counts and how they fit in with the collection of stem cells. Please understand this is the way I understand it and it might not be totally correct. The need to have the hemoglobin higher than a particular number is because it will drop during the collection process (or apheresis). Low hemoglobin starves the body of oxygen and that is not a good thing for the brain. The stem cells normally stay in the bone marrow where they can become either white blood cells, red blood cells, platelets etc. The growth factor I am receiving (Neupogen) creates lots more stem cells thus creating more white cells, platelets etc. There gets to be so many stem cells from the growth factor, they start coming out into the bloodstream and then, they can be collected. If the stem cells are not coming out into the blood stream enough, another drug can be given 12 hours before apheresis to cause them to come out more. This drug is Mozibil. This is the most expensive drug I receive and is over $20,000 per injection. They will not give more than 4 of these injections. The stem cells are frozen and stored after they are collected for use later after lethal doses of chemo are given to kill everything in the bone marrow. This process is done with the hope of killing the Myeloma. Once the bone marrow has been wiped out, the stem cells are given back to the patient to allow rebuilding the bone marrow. I hope this helps explain why I am posting the numbers each day and why they are important. 

By the way, Angela and Gordon are our friends who founded and publish an online truck camper magazine. Click here to check it out.