The next morning Scott gets his three Neupogen shots like clockwork at 7:00 am. Nurse Kim is getting pretty good at giving shots. He gets ready and heads out the door for another six hour-day of being hooked up to a machine that cycles all his blood and collects his cells. Only about 8 million cells needed today. Hopefully today will be the day. His back is pretty sore. Probably just "age". And laying in a bed most of the day. He shrugs it off. He comes home and decides to get in the tub and soak in the tub to relax his aching back. We wait for the phone call. At 7:30 pm the phone rings. Cells collected for the day: 1.6 million. Big sigh. Still not enough. Back again tomorrow. Mozobil injection given before bed. Well, they say the third times the charm. Hopefully tomorrow will be the charm. If not, they will only collect for four days, so worse case scenario, only another two days left. If they don't get enough, they have cells saved from the first harvest back in 2007 in Arizona. They can always use the backup cells.
Collection Day 3: Same as the last two days, Neupogen shots in the morning, off to the hospital. In the hospital bed, lay in bed all day. His back is really, really sore. It's so hard to lay down all day. By the time he drives home he can hardly move. He calls me to start the bath for him so he can get straight in the tub. He aches. He is stiff and sore. Something doesn't feel right in his lower back. What could it possibly be? The phone rings like clockwork. Cells collect: 1.4 million. Three day total: 4.7 million. Short the 10 million originally planned on. But the doctor says, that will do. And they call it good. Hurray, we are done collecting!!!! Stem Cell Collection Phase is over. Step one, check that off the list. One tiny little hurdle overcome. Many more big ones left. Now.....what is going on with his back?
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