Super Stem Cells

We went to the clinic this morning to get Nate's blood work done to see if they could go ahead and collect his stem cells today. The first good news is that his ANC (immune system) has recovered from this round of chemo. It looks like we got out of a hospital stay due to fever this time! Can a get a woohoo?! The second number we were waiting on was his stem cell count. Thy need it to be close to 10 (million) cells to start stem cell collection.

We waited all morning. We arrived at the clinic at 8am and didn't hear about his stem cell count until noon. Nate was super ornery today! Running all over the clinic...and even sticking his tongue out at me when I told him to come back! Note to self...find a time out spot at the clinic. Finally we got the number back. The wanted 10...Nate gave them 460! Everyone said this was the highest number any of them had seen. That's my boy! He's going to blow us away at every turn! We were happy his number was so high mostly
because that meant he would only have to spend one day hooked up to the machine and it would be an easy collection.

It was 2:30pm by the time they started the 4-6 hour collection process. Nate slept for the first couple hours, then woke to have a snack and watch some movies. Lou Lou came to relieve me to go to work at 5pm, then Daddy came after work to take him home. He didn't end up needing platelets or electrolytes after the procedure (which sometimes happens) and they headed home about 7:30pm.

It was a super long day, but overall pretty painless for everyone. We waited tonight to hear from the nurse about what his final count was. If it wasn't high enough, we would have to go back tomorrow. He needed 10 and it came back 52! The nurse said it was the highest number she remembers and she thinks he may have broken a hospital record. We think we should get him a trophy. Nate even has Super Stem Cells!!