cobe borg lives!

Here I am at the infusion center, being a happy little Borg. Specifically, I am hooked up to a Cobe Spectra, which is now my BFF of the stem cell transplant world:

The bag on the upper right contains my happy little white blood cells, which will be frozen and given back to me. But no! You want more of a close up of the whole vampire operation? Ask, and you shall receive:

My finger is pointing at the line going out of me. The other line is going back into me (minus some WBCs). The whole thing is really quite amazing. It's quite a specialized hotel here - I have access to room service, which I have already used to get a mid-morning snack (english muffin and fruit). Wireless access is good and Susan and I are both happily typing away at our keyboards as I type this:

The only issue is that you are connected to this machine for five hours. And if you have to go to the BR during this process? Well, you're peeing in a bottle. So, the key is to pee before you start, and minimize your fluid intake and hope for the best! I guess it's a good test of your prostate health to see if you can make it five hours without having to take care of business. We'll see how that goes!

Ok, that's it for now. I'm not sure if we'll get all the cells we need today (5 million) or if I'll need to come back tomorrow. The lab will look at the blood collected today and decide later this afternoon if I need another day of collection.  Much as I enjoy sitting here in my Borg alcove it would be nice to get this done in one day. Again, we're in wait and see mode. A big part of getting through this process is being flexible and not getting freaked out when schedules change. So we'll finish today about 1:30, go home and recharge and see where things from there. More news as it happens!