Photos from Transplant Day

Here's Tim in his hospital bed all hooked up and ready to go. There's actually no stem cells hanging on the IV pole in this picture, but just add another bag to the ones hanging there and that's all there was to see. He's hooked up to the BP machine that measured his blood pressure, pulse and blood oxygen levels every fifteen minutes. The nurse let me help by taking Tim's temperature every fifteen minutes.

This is the giant thermos bottle they used to transport Tim's stem cells from Feinberg to his room in Prentice. There's six inches of styrofoam attached to that black cap. The silver box on top of the blue cart is the hot water bath they melt the stem cell in. The stem cells are actually in these really tiny flat plastic bags that are then enclosed in a flat metal folder. The tech picked a folder out of the can (using an insulated mitt) and dropped it in the hot water bath. When it thawed a little, he removed the plastic bag from the folder and put it directly in the hot water bath until it thawed the rest of the way. The nurse hooked the stem cells up to an IV line and pumped them into Tim with a little extra saline for good measure. Since Tim had five bags, the whole show took and hour and half. The nurse, tech and I listened to Sharon Shanon (Irish music) and then "Song of Songs" by Steve Rashid, a friend and local jazz pianist. Tim slept except when we had to wake him up to take his temperature. He doesn't remember a thing.