Final Day of Treatment

Friday, 17 January 2020:

Early morning blood draw to get the potion for the liquid gold that would be injected in the knee a few hours later.  Christina, who had been assisting the doctor and taking great care of me all week, came in...on her day off...to do the blood draw.  ON HER DAY OFF!  As she was taking vial after vial, she asked if I brought any chocolate with me (I had brought her the chocolate the hotel had given me at check-in on Wednesday afternoon).  I told her I would bring her some when I came back.  That's when she told me she was there on her day off!  I told her I would still bring some in and give it to D. Marie to give to her next week.  She said D. Marie could and would eat it!  So of course, I had to bring in chocolate for the whole staff and a special one for Christina - because, she came in ON HER DAY OFF!

I apparently knocked it out of the ballpark again with the platelets - the color was pure gold.  The doctor happened to go by while they were processing the blood, saw the color and asked who it belonged too.  It truly was gold!  

I was on my back for the super concentrated platelet (SCP) and platelet lysate injections.  I was able to see all the prep work this time around and am happy to report they practice safe ultrasound!  Yes, they pretty much put a condom on the ultrasound wand (sorry, I did not get a photo of that).

Artwork by Dr. Joel Richnak

Liquid gold in! 

Look at that river of stem cells and the needle sending in the liquid gold.

The needle.

The layer of stem cells that did not exist before Wednesday afternoon.

The liquid gold getting boosted.

The platelet injection is pretty much the icing on the cake; it adds an extra boost of growth factors to help optimize the regenerative properties of the stem cells.  Fingers crossed the 2 billion stem cells do their thing to make my knee stronger.

Now the hard part for me...allowing the knee and the stem cells to work their magic.  I have to wear the knee brace for 6 weeks (did I mention I had to get a new one - due to the amount of work done around the kneecap, the doctor wanted me in a patella stabilizer brace rather than the unloader brace).  Fortunately I was able to get one on Thursday from Sierra Prosthetics-Orthotics.  Physical Therapy will start at the end of this coming week for 6 to 8 weeks.  I will go back to see Dr. Richnak and the crew in two months to see how the remodeling is going.