Yes please! May I have another!

Yes please!  May I have another...said no one ever after getting a vas cath placed in their neck. It's not so much the insertion as it is the fact that they leave this big drinking straw in place...then the lidocaine wears off.  It all went really well, it's the anticipation that gets you.  At 10:45 am the magical machine was spinning at 3000 RPMs and we were anxiously watching the bag that would fill with my stem cells.

My blood counts were good this morning to include platelets above 300,000 and my white count was above 8000, so they estimated we would get 10 million stem cells- though the target was 2 million. As I write this, my follow up platelet count was still good at 180,000  and we are waiting for the blood bank to get the final stem cell count.  If it's at the magic 2 million then Capt. Ahab can pull this harpoon out of my neck.  Craig and I have visions of some poor med student or lab assistant leaning over a microscope and saying, " 335, 336, ...wait, where was I? Darn...Okay, one,  two...".   I'm just happy to be out of that little room and I was afraid to drink liquids all day because I couldn't leave my magic machine so you can imagine what that means...

Craig was trying to break out the Will Ferrell cheerleader character from Saturday Night Live with catchy cheers like, "In the morning my breath smells, now come on and gimme lots of stem cells !". Then he took the photos you see so security escorted him to Lower Wacker Drive and I haven't seen him since.  I think the Billy Goat "cheeseburger-cheeseburger " place is down there so he's probably all right. No, seriously, he heard my discharge instructions that stated: "no excessive walking!" Whew!!  On Mother' s Day he walked to Cook County Hospital just so he could call his mom from where he used to live...last time we went there we took a bus AND a train.  Not normal.

                                                     My home for roughly 6 hours

Stem Cell Count in: 16.8 million!!!

So we have completed the testing phase, mobilization phase, and now completed the harvest phase. This should clear us for a quick trip home so we can love on our kids!  I CAN'T WAIT!

Today, I'm thankful for 16.8 million little stem cells that will come to my rescue after transplant.  We have an awesome Creator!  I'm so thankful that I'm that much closer to turning my MS off, and I'm thankful that for a few days I can be a mom again!!!!

~Veronica