A Marrowing Experience

It’s been a long time since I’ve written, and it’s partially because I’ve been BUSY BUSY BUSY.

One of the last times I wrote, I explained the need for me to donate bone marrow to my brother. Well, my family did go through the donation process back on April 23^rd.

That was an amazing day! It was exhausting and emotional, but amazing nonetheless. I think it would be good to summarize the process (in relation to my hips) in case it could be helpful for anyone else. So here you go:

To start, I’ll say that Dana Farber Cancer Institute, as well as Brigham and Women’s, are pretty spectacular places. I had an unbelievable experience with them, as did the rest of my family. I can’t thank them enough for all of their efforts and support throughout the process.

So I started working with my donation team in February/March to determine my validity as Jody’s donor. Even though I was a viable match, I still had a lot of prep work to do before I could be solidified as a healthy and worthwhile candidate. The first step was to determine if my previously performed osteotomy would pose any potential issues for the surgical team performing the harvest. Since I still have my surgical screws, they had to spend some time analyzing my screw placement.  It was determined that because my screw heads are all in the front my pelvis, and the harvest team harvests the marrow from the back of the pelvis, the screws would not be an issue. We could proceed with the rest of the screening process.

In addition to the pelvic analysis, I had to have a series of blood work (they took 29 vials of blood!), physical examinations, and a psychological exam to be sure that I am in both a good mental and physical condition.  Thankfully, I passed everything with flying colors and we went ahead with the donation.

Right side insertion points. 

The harvest procedure consisted of a large gauge needle inserted into the iliac crest of the pelvis, and into the spongy bone space inside my pelvis where the bone marrow is located. The needle is then used to extract a previously determined amount of marrow, based on your weight and the weight of the recipient. In my harvest they utilized four insertion points and extracted approximately 1150 mLs of marrow.

Harvested Marrow

The procedure itself was pretty short; I believe I was only in the operating room for about an hour, hour and a half. I woke up pretty uncomfortable, but mostly I was just exhausted from the anesthesia and blood loss. Because I woke up with some back pain, they gave me a dose of Dilaudid (my nemesis from PAO!). I actually tolerated it okay, but it made me extremely sleepy, just like the last time. So I slept most of the afternoon. Sometime later that afternoon I started to feel a bit more human and I think by evening I was up and chatting. I felt good enough to go home that night, so they discharged me sometime later that evening.

Post-op bandage.

The days that followed were a little tough, but it had nothing to do with my hips, which was great. It was just an intense stiffness in my back. There was some pain for a couple of days, but nothing that this old hip warrior couldn’t handle. Overall I’d say that it was a pretty great experience as far as my hips were concerned.

Hopefully no one out there will ever have the need to read this entry for reassurance, but if you do, note that my PAO had absolutely no impact on my ability to donate or in my recovery from the procedure.

Here’s hoping you all are healthy and happy, and that you are heading into the holiday season with love and good fortune!

-D