The Walk Beside

September 2010
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The three weeks post stem cell infusion.

Posted on May 11th, 2008 by Cam.
Categories: All The Videos, Let's talk.

This is on the 17th of April when I received my stem cells back. An important part of the process, you can imagine. The red goop in the bag are my stem cells collected last November. It was good to be reunited. Two days prior to this footage been taken, I had the high-dose chemo, so the destruction of my marrow was already taking place. Using my own stem cells is called an autologous infusion. One of the later forms of treatment may be to use someone else’s matched stem cells, like one of my sister’s for example. This is called an allogeneic transplant.

Almost a week later, I my temperature started to creep up after getting some kind of infection. Our only option was to head to the emergency department. Due to a bed shortage, I spent the first night in isolation in ED.

Hair falling out. Live. Soon after this footage was taken, Elizabeth shaved my head. To cut a long story short, I got cold when we took the towels off that we had put around me to catch the hair. I got rigors, and shook uncontrollably for the next 20-30 minutes. A nice warm bed and some pethidene put an end to that, thank goodness. It took a day for my body to recover – exhausting.

A day in the hospital life.

Always good to be heading home.

1 comment.

Videos of High Dose Day

Posted on April 17th, 2008 by Cam.
Categories: All The Videos, Let's talk.

1. Driving to the hospital yesterday morning for high-dose chemo.

2. Just before I head down to ‘recovery’ for the central line to be put in. I think they should call it ‘discovery’ because they took an awful long time to find the way to my heart.

3. The tubes are in and I am just about to start the chemo, starting by sucking the ice for a while.

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Day one of chemo

Posted on January 17th, 2008 by Cam.
Categories: All The Videos, Let's talk.

This is the first batch of chemicals I took on day one. We had just come back from the hospital and I had already taken a few counter-active pills before hand.

7 comments.

Injectathon

Posted on December 6th, 2007 by Cam.
Categories: All The Videos, Let's talk.

This is the ‘prelude to a harvest’. I am injecting a growth hormone that increases the production of stem cells and forces them into the bloodstream in a higher concentration. One of the side effects is bone pain, similar to growing pains. It felt like something was sqeezing my spine from the inside in a throbbing motion whenever I stood up or sat down. This footage contains sub-cutaneous needle use.

The Stem Cell Harvester. The blood comes out of one arm, goes into the centrifuge to be spun around. From what I understand, the red blood cells go into the bottom level, the plasma comes to the top, and the stem cells are located in the layer in between. This process is able to get about 1mL of the good juice per minute. Like liquid gold, but less pretty to look at.

1 comment.

Measure Up

Posted on December 5th, 2007 by Cam.
Categories: All The Videos, Let's talk.

These are two of the wonderful staff who looked after me for my radiotherapy. The music in the background was usually either Johnny Cash or Elvis. Very difficult for me to keep my hips still during Suspicious Minds.

This is the machine that administers the radiation. No one is allowed in the room except the patient while it is emitting the radiation. This particular footage shows the machine twisting onto its side to take a profile of my chest in X-ray. A few times a week they would take such an X-ray to monitor the progress of the therapy. The screen that you see unfolding is the receiving part of the digital X-ray.

3 comments.