Serendipity and Stem Cell Collection: May 10, 2022

This past weekend was a quiet lead-up to stem cell collection. Of Neupogen injections with their attendant headaches, nausea that swept back in and was soon tamed again with drugs that I am infinitely grateful for, fatigue, a hushed apartment. I am letting no one down by feeling the effects of chemo, and I notice without reacting to the ebbs and flows of my body being primed to collect stem cells.

Over the weekend I’m on social media posting updates to Instagram. My friend Sari had previously directed me to an account called shift.ms; they are one of a handful of handles that I follow from my blog. Unusually, I watch their weekend takeover stories because I’m lounging around and have the time, and up pops a smiling, engaging woman around my age, speaking about her upcoming stem cell transplant. At the Cleveland Clinic. Starting this week. I scroll through the her stories but can’t find a way to contact her, until she posts a link to her blog.

I read through the posts and am convinced I need to meet this woman. She has a keen eye for detail and writes so well, it’s as if she was in the 7 Tesla MR machine with me in April. She likes books. We share the same hematologist and the same experiences; her blog even shares the same aesthetics as mine. I feel like I already know and like her. I send her an email and she quickly responds, and we start chatting over text.

Carolyn will be at Taussig when I am there on Monday to get my labs, and we meet in the clinic waiting room at 7:15am. I scan the open space and our eyes find each others’ swiftly, and I hug a stranger who is also instantaneously my friend. My eyes fill with tears at the beautiful serendipity of it, or maybe because it is beshert - meant to be. I cry again in the writing of it, because whether it is God or the universe, someone here is looking out for me.

The stem cell collection itself is painless. I am hooked up to the apheresis machine through my central line, and the nurses keep me comfortable with a hollow blanket pumped full of warm air. The last time I had plasmapheresis in December 2021 in Toronto, the machine beeped its displeasure every time I lifted my head from the bed; today the machine is equally unhappy, although at least I can sit up and keep myself busy with answering emails and phone calls. I leave the hospital after day one feeling well enough to walk home, and my mom and I take a leisurely stroll around the Wade lagoon.

While we are walking, Katie, my transplant coordinator, calls me to come back for day two of apheresis. Every MS patient before me has completed collection in one day, and she expects I’ll be disappointed to have to return tomorrow - but I’m not. Here, I am able to let go of expectations, and feel, tentatively at first, and now with a more open heart, ready to trust that the universe has my back. That things will be as intended. And the next morning, the process goes more smoothly after the team uses a new kit in the apheresis machine. I collect a glowing bag of burgundy stem cells on day two, for a total of 4.93 million. The numbers suffice. My stem cell collection is complete.