Stem Cell Collection Day

Yesterday was stem cell collection day! After weeks of preparation and a lot of stress for all of us around Abby being her brother's donor, it's done!

Abby and I were at the hospital at 7:30 am. Daddy and Ollie got to sleep in and enjoy a boys day without having to go to the hospital.

 Abby was surprisingly calm even though she felt a bit nervous. The nurse, Joan, put us at ease from the start with her sunny, kind and friendly nature. She's from Kitchener-Waterloo and has been a nurse for 9 years. She worked in transplants before this, so she's helped with many medical miracles. She took the time to answer all of our questions and show us how the dialysis machine works.

When Abby learned that she'd need to have bloodwork done before collection she became more stressed even though we explained that the blood would be taken from the IV they needed to put in for the collection anyways.

She still prefers to sit on mama when getting scary pokes, so that's what we did to put the IV in each arm (one to take blood out to run through the machine to collect the stem cells and the other to push her stem cell free blood back into her body) and to collect the small blood sample that they needed to verify that her Complete Blood Count (CBC) is good for the procedure to happen.

Like CHEO, Sick Kids has a VAT (Vein Access Team) that does the IV's, central line insertions, etc. They were tickled pink to hear that CHEO's was now calling themselves VAT, too. Like the CHEO team, these ladies were total pros who quickly and efficiently did their jobs.

So with a bit of deep breathing and mama whispering that she was so brave and had this, she got it done and exclaimed after that it wasn't that bad.

We did an online chat with Mario and Ollie at this point and Daddy was a bit teary, as was I. What an incredible girl we have. I so never wanted her to have to be the one to be responsible for saving her brother, but as with everything she has handled over the last 6 months, she has tackled this head on, with no doubt about what needed to be done and with absolute grace throughout. She is such a blessing and I'll always consider her selfless gift and use it as my ultimate measuring stick when I think about how I can help others. My grandma always said, if you can help someone, you should. My grandma's beautiful spirit lives on in my daughter.

After this we started watching a movie (Ride Like a Girl, which is a great girl power movie!) while we waited for her blood test results. They were back in under an hour and we were told everything looked awesome and all systems were go!

 

She wasn't thrilled about seeing her blood start to come out of her body and cycle back in a little later, but she got used to it. She did say that the IVs hurt a bit, but the nurse said that her veins were pulsating they were pushing the blood out so fast! Thank goodness she has good, juicy veins like mama! 

Abby had an online chat with friends for a bit and explained the experience to them and then they played weird games in Messenger where they pretended to be Narwhals and Unicorns and catch rings on their horns.

The Dialysis/Apheresis Unit is a happening place. By mid-morning there were a bunch of teens and a few younger kids getting their dialysis (Abby was the only one there for stem cell collection). 

There was a visit from the Sick Kids clowns who clearly do not enjoy the same notoriety as CHEO's Molly Penny and Dr. Tiny (see photo on masthead of this blog for the first day Ollie meet them) as the nurses could not remember their names. 

Then a bunch of the nurses tried to do a TikTok dance to entertain one of the teenagers. This was amazing. My heart melted at the lengths that these women would go to make kids smile. 

 

I've been missing CHEO, but we've found their spirit and warm culture here in dialysis. I can't wait to discover more in the coming weeks. It's what I needed to feel like we're in good hands. Weird that it is this and not their medical expertise that matters to me, right?! But I take for granted that those working in medicine are mostly experts. It's their hearts and commitment to their patients that makes me respect them most. So Lynn, if you're reading, I'm starting to see that you indeed left Sick Kids in good hands and am grateful for it.

 

One of her doctors, Dr. Knight popped in to check that Abby was doing well and said he'd see us in 8D when we were done to check vitals and her blood levels again to ensure that she wasn't lacking potassium or anything as the dialysis machine can sometimes cause this.

So her bag of life saving stem cells slowly filled up over about 4.5 hours. I was surprised to see it look so red and have blood in it, but apparently this is a great colour in stem cell world.

Finally the deed was done successfully. The nurses all gushed about what an amazing gift Abby was giving to her brother and how brave she'd been all day.

Normally they'd be stored carefully for up to 48 hours until the recipient received them. The Corona virus changed this, too, so they were taken to be frozen until Ollie's transplant on April 16. Naturally they used a cooler. Too bad no drinks in there. These days I could really use one. LOL

They also took a last bit of blood to test her levels again. Then we went up to 8D to wait for the results and have some lunch. It was 2 pm. So really we'd been there 6.5 hours already.

Thankfully Abby's levels came back pretty close to normal. She was told to go home and drink some Gatorade and have a banana and with a little rest she'd be completely back to normal within a day or two.

We've put together a video of her donation experience to share with the world as when we were researching peripheral stem cell donations, the only ones we could find featured adults and none told the kid or sibling experience.

Today Abby is feeling better and pretty happy with her overall experience. She spent the day planning her learning for school now that the donation is done. Her absolute focus on what she needs to do next is enviable and incredible given everything she's dealt with in these last months. I SO LOVE HER!