First Photopheresis

Well it happened...and it was quite an experience.  We get down to the lab and there is a long row of beds with all this equipment next to them. Picture a comfortable morgue.  The nurse tried to forewarn Graham of what was about to happen to him, but I don't think he could have ever prepared himself for this.  Let me just start out saying, Graham has a HIGH tolerance for pain.  I mean, there really wasn't much complaining after transplant where they cut you open, crack your ribs, take out some lungs and put more in.  All he would say was that he was "uncomfortable."

So the nurse gets out this needle that, I kid you not, is not much smaller than the meat thermometer you use on a turkey.  Graham's eyeballs almost popped out of his head.  Next thing I know, I'm up and running to hold his hand and lord have mercy he has a strong grip.  His feet could not stop wiggling and he went from a nice olive skin tone to being camouflaged with the white sheet.  The Nurse had to shove with a LOT of pressure, this big old needle through his skin and port, straight to the catheter.  Graham's pain level was a perfect unhappy face 10.  I felt so bad for him.  He said he literally went to another realm of mind and spirit.  First pain, then nausea, then a tingly cold feeling; he decided to just be still and get through it.

This is when I realized just how funny God's sense of humor is.  The master match maker made sure he put a hemophobic (fear of blood) girl with a chronically ill boy.  Today, this girl had to watch blood being cycled out of her boy.  I didn't pass out, but I almost did; and I kept my cookies, though dry heaving was involved.  But I made it without a single code purple!  Here are these 4 men and 1 woman getting these big ass needles put in them and feeling cold and tingly, and I'm over on Graham's bed, healthy, but shaking and moaning.  Such a funny God! 

Graham is feeling well this evening.  And no, it's not from the treatment; that will take a couple of weeks.  But we are now working on 2 days of normal heart rate, normal blood pressure, and normal eating.  He still can't get up and move, but going to the bathroom or getting up to wash his hands is no longer a painful chore. 

I know he is dreading that needle tomorrow - poor guy!