Tuesday, June 27, 2017
I arrived to the Bone Marrow Transplant/Multiple Myeloma Clinic at Huntsman Cancer Hospital at approximately 6:27 AM. Usually, I can't get anywhere before 9am but considering my anxiety and the inability to sleep, I arrived 3 minutes early.
I got checked in and was very scared. I was scared of the unknown, how the numbing was going to work, how it would feel and how I would feel after. What most people don't know about bone marrow biopsies is they are done with the patient fully conscious. There is quite a big risk every time a patient is sedated so healthcare providers try to avoid, if possible. I can remember sitting in the procedure room watching the second hand on the clock move. The timeframe from check in at 6:27 to 7:08 when I signed consent felt like forever. I honestly think time moved faster doing bike sprints. I tried to discourage my parents from coming because like I mentioned above, it is quite barbaric and I am not sure anyone should have to watch their child go through it. But my parents insisted, it was nice to have them there however I know it was hard for them to watch.
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| Why are we smiling? |
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| How we really feel |
I signed consent at exactly 7:09AM, I remember this because medical forms require you to document exact times. I was then instructed to lay on my stomach. The PA then felt both my hips bones and marked a spot on my left hip/pelvis. I was then sterilized with iodine and a sterile drape was placed over my back. I knew the numbing part was coming. I tried to do some guided imagery and mediation to prepare for the burn of the lidocaine. The PA was super great and told me everything he was doing, prior to doing it. At least the lidocaine shots didn't really feel like much. I felt relieved but then he went deeper, nerve pain shot down my left leg. I could feel the needle on top of my bone. It was scratching and horrifically painful. I started to cry and so did my mom. I didn't know how much more I could take. The PA took about 5 minutes trying to numb as much as he could.
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Luckily, I got to lay on my tummy |
We proceeded to wait about 5 minutes to have the lidocaine take full effect. Then came the first part of the biopsy, called the aspirate. This is where the stick a needle through the bone into the bone marrow and withdraw about 15mL of bone marrow blood. Lidocaine can numb sharp pain but you still feel pressure. I knew what was coming but I don't think one can prepare. The needle used to go through the bone is like a corkscrew, the PA can't just stick the needle through the bone. He had to corkscrew it in and this was the part that was very bizarre. There was a lot of pressure and I could feel and hear the twist of the needle. It sounded like teeth grinding but in my hip and the pressure was quite intense. I suddenly felt a pop and knew he had reached the marrow. He warned me that the aspirate part the most uncomfortable part and I remember thinking, how can anything be worse than what just happened? He attached a syringe to the end of the needle and had to take 3 separate samples. It felt like a suction vacuum sucking the blood from the bone. Let's just say, doing this once was miserable but 3x was almost unbearable. Before moving on to the next part of the procedure the PA handed the samples to the Bone Marrow tech to make sure the sample had spicules in the blood. (that basically means you are getting bone marrow not blood!) Could you imagine going through all that and sending it off to the lab and them saying, Umm sorry this is just blood! If you notice in the picture below, the white specks in the bone marrow, those are good and they are spicules.
The next part, was the actually core biopsy part. Where the remove a chunk of bone with the bone marrow attached to the end and send it to pathology. I thought this was going to be the worst part but this part was virtually painless.
And finally after about 20 minutes, it was over. The needle was removed and a bandage was placed on my back. I had to lay on my stomach for 10 minutes with a weight over the bandage to make sure I didn't bleed. I was so relieved it was over but then thought ran through my mind, this probably wasn't the hard part, the hard part was the waiting. I said thank you to the team for being so kind and supportive, I walked my parents to the car and thanked them for coming, even though their faces had a greenish hue. I think they realized what I meant when I said you can't unsee it. After dropping off my parents I walked back to work and started the day as any other Tuesday. I was in quite a bit of pain as the lidocaine wore off but I mustered through. The worst part was how tired I was from only getting 30 minutes of sleep the night before. I got home from work around 7pm and went straight to sleep. I slept for 12 glorious hours. It was amazing. My cutie pie Oliver didn't leave my side the whole night. I received so many well wishes thoughts, texts, phone calls and messages. I was overwhelmed at my support system. Thank you to all who reached out.
Thursday, June 29, 2016
The RESULTS! Any normal patient would have to wait to see the doctor to find our their results but since I have access to my own medical record I have been stalking the reports. 2 out of the 3 tests are back and they are completely normal. As soon as my results posted, I paged Adam (the doctor I worked for) and made him come to my desk to analyze the results. YAHOO! I am so relieved. We are still waiting for one more genetic test to come back but overall amazing news. News I was not expecting.
The hardest part of being a cancer nurse is knowing that my patients never got results like I got. As happy as I am I feel a sense of guilt. Why me? Why them? It is hard to explain unless you see patients every day ask what they did to get cancer and the answer is always we don't know.
I see the doctor tomorrow and hopefully find out the next steps. I still have increased MAST cells and EOSINOPHILS in my blood so we need to figure that out. But knowing they are not in my bone marrow is great news. This technically means something like allergies is causing an increase in MAST and EOSINOPHILS in my blood but they are not over produced in my bone marrow (causing blood disorders, cancer, etc)
Again, thank you for all your support. I hope to never ever have to have another bone biopsy in my life.
-Whitney
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