The nurse arrived bright and early again this morning to administer Neupogen shot #4 and leave me with two more Band-Aids on my right arm. The soreness, a dull, transient ache that moves between shoulders, thighs, and the small of my back, with an occasional joint twinge (neck, wrist), is nowhere nearly as bad as I feared. I guess this is bone pain, but could swear the discomfort is directly in my muscles. It reminds me of times when I fell asleep on the couch, or ran too far while wearing the wrong kind of shoes. It did get annoying enough this evening to break out the Tylenol with codeine, but doesn’t hold a candle to food poisoning, root canal, or post-surgical kinds of pain, all of which I know a little too well. I wish the NMDP would plaster an alert on their website: “It doesn’t hurt much at all! Honestly!” A number of people have told me they would never donate because of the pain, an unfortunate misconception often spread by the media because it makes for juicier plot lines.
(A word about misconceptions. That’s why I started this blog, as explained in the sidebar: to add to the body of donor stories and perhaps de-mystify the procedure for someone else. Initially I thought that donation entailed a big Roto-Rooter of the bones; I might have been frightened away entirely if not for those realistic first-person accounts. How dare I write this stuff, a nasty person who wouldn’t leave his or her name tried to comment here earlier today. It’s all about the recipient; I should shut up, be humble, and not tell a soul. I know that good deeds kept secret are the best kind, but also that we are responsible for one another and need to share knowledge and education about those mitzvot, or else we won’t learn how to do them. Other bloggers helped me understand, and I want to return the favor.)
OK, see you all when it’s over.
A bone marrow donation story. 