My uncle attended a class at City of Hope on how to give self-injections at home. He said he practice with a needle and something that sounds like styrofoam. As preparation for donating stem cells, the donor is required to do 5 days of injection of Neupogen. This is the same drug doctors give cancer patients, especially neutropenic patients, to stimulate white blood cell growth. He gives himself shots for 5 days, starting January 25th, 2014, then enters the hospital on January 29th to have his stem cells harvested. More details about that in a different post! In a nutshell, they used to have to take the actual bone marrow for stem cell harvesting. Now they do it with peripheral blood, immediately giving you back your own blood after taking out what they need. Pretty rad, right?