DONATION INSTRUCTIONS

Okay, this is my meager attempt to try and explain the whole donation process. It's a little involved, and overall looks to be about a 3 day process, but if you could spare the time and inconvenience i would greatly appreciate it! And you know exactly who you are donating to so if you know me you can hold it over my head if you ever need to and say "Hey, remember when i saved your life?" And if you don't know me, then you're probably better for it, but i would still greatly appreciate your donation!

Before taking prescreen or donating, individuals must:

Refrain from taking antibiotics 72 hours in advance.

Refrain from taking aspirin, ibuprofen, green tea products, or any other supplements that can act as blood thinners 48 hours in advance.

You can call 713.792.7777 to set up a pre-screen and qualification appointment at either the Mays Clinic (1220 Holcombe, Entrance #5, 2^nd Floor near Elevator S, closed on weekends) or at Holly Hall (2555 Holly Hall, just east of Almeda, open 7 days a week). You will need to reference the patient’s name and medical record number ( Robert Toon, MR# 772497). You should then be contacted within 24 hours of your screening to let you know whether or not you qualified.

If you qualify, please call or text the family coordinator (Stephanie Toon, 501-554-3837) so she can schedule a time for an additional west nile virus a pre-screen medication pick up (Holly Hall). You will a receive a shot of Neupogen that you will take home and administered at 8:00pm the night before you donate. This will stimulate your white cell growth. It’s a very small needle and a very small amount of fluid. The following morning you will go to Holly Hall at 8:00am to make your donation. This process will take approximately 2-3 hours.

I know this process is a little involved and I appreciate your effort. At this point, I have no way of fighting off infections while I’m waiting for my next transplant and any edge you can give me is a huge plus. Thank you.

Rob Toon

Day 30

I apologize for the break in communication. It has been somewhat of a hectic week around here with a different set of circumstances about every other day so reporting on it would have just let to a lot of confusion anyway. Now you get the less confusing, summed up version.

I kind of hit the proverbial wall this week. Around Monday or Tuesday I received some less than comforting news from the doctors concerning my health and treatment, which can really make time slow down to a crawl and get you thinking about all the negative scenarios. The news was that they had yet to hear anything concerning my original donor agreeing to donate again. MD Anderson is not able to contact my donor directly because they found him through the marrow foundation and have to follow certain protocol in order to communicate with the donor. Its like a big game of telephone. My doctors needed to know something asap because apparently we are more pressed for time than they had originally let on, mainly due to the fact that my white count has been zero for an extremely long time, and they felt that some action needed to be taken and soon. They even asked for my dad's contact info so they could work him up to see if he might be a match, which is logical, but still sort of long shot. Don't get me wrong, my dad is probably the fittest, dare i say it, 63 year old man i know and his cells have kicked a lot of ass in their day, but the odds of matching just aren't that high.

So here we are, discussing long shot plan B and waiting on a phone call, and on top of that my doctors now say that i need to have a white cell transfusion soon because i'm in severe risk of additional infections and i need to get rid of the infection in my blood that i already have before they can proceed with anything, so now i get to solicit to the houston area for white blood cells so i don't die from infection within the next few weeks. getting information like this within a two day period (when you think everything is already set and in order) kind of shut me down, so i've done a lot of sleeping over the last couple of days.

Well, today I found out that my original donor agreed to donate again, and that my next transplant is set up for the 11th. Words cannot describe they joy this brings me. I've never been one to celebrate prematurely, but given the recent circumstances, I've never been more positive about the overall outcome of this. I still have to get rid of this blood infection, though, so it is crucial that i start with these white cell transfusions asap. I'll be posting a "how to" list concerning donating white cells so if you know someone in the houston area that may be interested then please refer them to this website. All donations must be made locally, and there is a prescreening and a couple of other things involved, so be sure and read the list first. Okay, more to follow. Take care.