Rebirth - transplant day

Although we had to wait a multiple of hours for my stem cells to be delivered it went off without a hitch.

the New York blood bank was keeping my cells safe. Scheduled to be dropped off at 12 they didn’t arrive until 4:30 - ugh - the wait was terrible mostly in part because I hadn’t slept well the night before and secondly because i was hooked up to iv fluids and couldn’t walk around.

the team at NYU was ready when the cells arrived and five nurses descended on my room for set up. There were eight bags of my cells. Each frozen in dry ice. they needed to ensure that they were actually mine based on labeling and slowly defrost each bag in a water bath one at a time. Because of possible damage to the cells they can’t use the iv pump to administer and they need to make sure it’s done slowly. So it was the old fashioned way, the cells just hung - no pump - and the nurse managing the flow of cells slightly pushing on the bag to feed through. It took over an hour to administer 8 bags of cells which took 4 days (40 hours) to originally collect from me.

with all these nurses in the room it was time for some entertainment. Just as we started the infusion I put on youtube and we listened to playlist of pop tracks starting with Wild Side - Normani - of course this is a life changing moment why not make it memorable. I wanted a happy atmosphere but as I mentioned it went off without a hitch. blood pressure and temperature remained steady throughout.

so now, I’ve finally had some rest although I’ve been hooked up to a heart monitor, IV fluids and oxygen all night and will be so for another 10 hours (totaling 24 hours) at this point.

the good news - right now - I feel great and am ready to turn to the next chapter of my rebirth.