Dean P. Demos

I have a port.  No ships … just blood goes in and out.  That starts tomorrow morning.

The hospital people call it a catheter.  It was inserted in a semi-surgical procedure.  No joke.  Anesthesia and all.  Anyway, I now am ready for tomorrow morning when they will hook me up to an apheresis machine that will take blood out one side of the port, separate the healthy stem cells, and then pump the left overs back into my intake port.

When they have enough of them, I’m done.  They will remove the catheter and freeze my stem cells.  An amazing process.

The neupogen I’ve been taking all weekend has quite a reputation.  One of my nurses today said, “You really look neupogenic.”  Believe me, I felt neupogenic ALL WEEKEND.  I found out it’s common … flu-like achy-ness … “My Achy, Breaky Bones.”  (I feel a song comin’ on)

I’ll be glad when this is over.

Life has its struggles.  The other day I was reading the Book of Ruth.  Naomi told her friends to call her “Mara” for the Lord had been very rough on her.  She didn’t realize that her sorrow would be rewarded when her daughter-in-law’s descendants would be King David and Jesus.

Hold on.  I will if you will.