When we arrived at the stem cell collection unit, the nurse told me to make sure I went to the bathroom because once the procedure started I would be stuck in the chair for up to 5 hours. This was excellent advice.

The stem cell collection unit is equipped with large padded recliners much like the ones you will find in a blood donor clinic. I was told to hop up in the chair and things got underway. The nurse started by taking my vitals (temperature / blood pressure). She then proceeded to hook me up to the machine. Stem cells are collected using a process called aspherisis. Basically, an IV line is inserted into each arm. The machine draws blood out of one arm, filters stem cells then returns the unused portion of the blood back into the other arm. The nurse told me that there would never be more than about 500ml of blood outside my body at any given time during the process.

I must admit that if you are squeamish about needles, you definitely want to look away while being hooked up to the aspherisis machine. The needle they insert into the “output” arm is surprisingly large. The nurse was a real pro though and I barely felt a thing when she inserted it.

Once I was hooked up to the machine the nurse turned it on. This is when things became a little dull. Not much of anything happened between that point and the end 5 hours later. The machine just pumped away and I had to just sit there. Fortunately, Joanne was there to keep me company. There was a actually an amazing view from the stem cell unit. We were on the 14th floor of Princess Margaret Hospital which is right downtown Toronto. We had a gorgeous view of the CN tower, Lake Ontario and all of the cool buildings on the Toronto skyline.

About an hour into the collection, I started to feel a funny vibration in my teeth. At first, I thought that my chair must have been up against the aspherisis machine causing it to vibrate. I mentioned this to the nurse. She told me that the chair was certainly not up against the machine but that what I was feeling was perfectly normal. She said that a side effect of the stem cell collection is that it can cause your calcium level to drop which gives you a tingling or vibrating feeling in your mouth. She gave me an injection of calcium into the IV line and sure enough, within 10 minutes or so the vibrating went away.

As I mentioned, the collection took about 5 hours. Once they had enough stem cells collected, they disconnected me from the machine. The nurse checked my vitals again. We left for the day and were told to stay in town for a couple hours while they processed the stem cells. The unit of stem cells was put through a special process called CD34 selection. Basically, they use special equipment that strips off a special kind of cell called CD34 which is the type of cell they want to transplant to the patient. Sometimes, this process ends up destroying too many cells and they have to ask the donor to come back the next day to collect more. That’s why they asked us to stay in town for a couple hours until they knew whether or not I needed to come back the next day.

I felt completely fine after the procedure. Joanne and I went to the Eaton’s center and did some shopping. We went for dinner and the doctor phoned us around 6pm to tell us that they had enough cells and that there was no need to come back the next day. The lasting impression I have of the whole process is that any pain and discomfort I felt was minor and I would do it again to help someone else in a heartbeat.

Sadly, Katie relapsed with disease before she received the transplant and we’ll never know if the transplant would have cured her.

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