The Team and the Machine

On Tuesday, February 17, I was hooked up to the Apheresis machine to separate my blood into its components on the basis of weight. The machine can be used to obtain plasma (the liquid of the blood), platelets or white cells. For stem cell transplantation, white cells are collected, frozen and a small percentage of these white cells are stem cells, which can later restore bone marrow function, producing cells that eventually mature into red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets.

The goal this week was to collect 2 million of these cells that could take up to five days. Things went well and I produced nearly 8 million of these cells! Now that this has taken place, I will receive a high dose of chemotherapy on March 10. The purpose of this procedure is to eliminate cancer cells. Then the collected cells will be thawed and transfused back into his body for the desired result.

And just this note. Gail Bradway of our church sent me her devotional prayers and thoughts this week again. And this week, she was reading Matthew 10 and wrote, "Jesus called twelve of His followers and sent them into the ripe fields. He gave them power to kick out the evil spirits and to tenderly care for the brusied and broken hurt lives." Then she prayed, "God may we at FBC be alert to the call. Thank you for the tender care our nurses (Oyin and Gail) are giving pastor." Then later she wrote about God's great attention to us, even numbering the hairs of our head. But then she crossed the phrase about the hairs on our head out and wrote in its place, "even numbering the white blood cell count!" Great application for this week!