"You Are The Perfect Match"

On Wednesday December 14th I got a call from a lady at the bone marrow donation....the basic introductory name and where she's calling from, tagged along with she needed to talk to me about my blood samples, and then followed by the words "you are the perfect match for the donor".

FANTASTIC!!!

Since then, I have signed all the paperwork, found out more about the exact procedure I'll be doing, and today I had my physical/first appt for the procedure.

Here's what I know. I'm donating to a lady with acute leukemia, and I am taking part of a research study as I am not doing bone marrow donation, as in someone sticking a huge needle in my hip. I am doing what is known as PBSC donation. I will be injected with a chemical hormone that will stimulate my immune system to ramp up and produce lots of bone-making stem cells, WBC's, etc. I do those for five days and on the fifth day I go through a procedure known as apheresis. It will take approximately 5-6 hours. I'll be hooked up to a machine that is much like a hemodialysis machine, in which my blood will exit via one arm, go through a machine which will filter out the PBSC products, and then put my blood back in my body.

It will be painful in a way, as the injections will produce flu-like symptoms, and then having huge needles in my arms for 5 hours or more is not fun, but if that's all I have to endure to save a life, I'm going for it!!

So excited...and nervous....to do this donation.

I donate Jan 13th. In one week I'll start nursing school and donate bone marrow. What a week that will be!!