MrbLOB9000

Well, if you’ve got a little time to waste and someone offers you a free bone marrow test, decline with prejudice.  It does fucking blow, the rumors aren’t for no reason.

They did a blood test first.  The nurse took some blood in the little vials, she hit the vein directly no problem.  As soon as she pulled it out of my arm she goes, “Wait, did they want *some_shit* as well?” it apparently wasn’t on the sheet but she figured they’d probably need other vials for other tests, so she went and ask and then came back and was super apologetic and said, “in my 40 years as a nurse this has never happened.”  She did the same thing on the other arm, hit the vain first try no problem and got the 2 or so other vials they needed and then that was done.  Needles and drawing blood are no big deal for me, doesn’t hurt much to me and I’m not one of those people that are afraid of needles.

Next came the fun part.  Went to an exam room and Dr. Dragon had me lay on my stomach on the exam table (or whatever it’s called) and pulled down my pants and underwear so my ass was showing.  The actual place they draw it form is the hip bone, so it’s basically above the ass/were the ass starts.  He went with the left side, cleaned it with some solution on a towelette thigner.  First he injected local anesthetic for the skin and muscle, think he may have like pulled it out half way and deposited the stuff around an area vs. just injecting all of it in one spot but not super sure.  Next up was anesthetic for membrane around the bone.  This is when the shitty started.  Apparently the membrane really doesn’t it like to be poked because it hurt pretty good while he was doing this, like the other anesthesia I think he kind of did an area and not just put the needle in and shot all the stuff in one place.  It was painful and an odd feeling (since it’s the first time anyone’s ever poked my bone/membrane thing) but not super bad yet.

Their’s two different bone marrow tests, one they suck out some juice and one they suck out some actual marrow.  I think they did the liquid one first, he stuck a needle in and started kinda poking the bone asking if it hurt and once he found a spot that only hurt a little he starts into the bone, kinda slow probably twisting it to make it go in and it hurt like fucking bitch.  My leg by it’s self kinda flew up and out a little bit.  The nurse goes, “Don’t move your legs,” so I tried my best not too.  The pain itself is like an odd mixture of like an underlying dull pain that’s more or less constant while it’s happening with slightly sharp pain that super ramps up when stuff is happening.  The amount of dull pain also ramps up with the sharp pain as well.  My Dr. Dragon says he’s in and their’s going to be a vacuum (or suction, one of the two) inside the bone and then it hurt differently for a second then the same pain still happened but slowly was less bad (so I guess the suction/vacuum figured it’s self out and made it hurt less from that, still hurt having the needle in though).  He pulled that out and next was the one to get actual bone marrow.  I guess this needle is bigger since it’s for marrow and not just liquid but I didn’t actually see either of them.  Same thing, find the spot that hurt less, start in, twist and work it in.  Don’t know if their was suction on this one or if it was just shove the needle in and then the needle will have the stuff in it and then you pull it out and it still has the stuff in it.  He didn’t say anything about suction or whatever so either the bone had already done whatever it was that made sucking stuff out hurt less and it was able to do it, or their was no vacuum/suction this time.  They both hurt like a bitch.

At some point he was doing something and kinda poking around and like kinda knocking on my bone with the needle or something but not super sure what was going on.  I think it was after he did the anesthesia to check that it worked, he ask if it was painful or if I just felt the knocking or tapping or whatever he said.  Think I said it hurt some but mostly the tapping.

Then we were done and he ask if my CT was done or when it was scheduled for, I said they hadn’t scheduled one yet and he’s like, “Why not?” in a kinda what the hell tone, not at me but at the situation or the people up front or whatever.  He’s leaving for vacation on monday so he wants the test to be done as soon as possible so he can figure out which treatment to go with and whatnot and get shit going before he leaves for his vacation.  I went up front to schedule the CT scans and it was surprisingly painless, told the lady my name and what they wanted to schedule and she looked it up and Dr. Dragon’s nurse had entered like a ticket for what they wanted scheduled so she called the radiology department and got it scheduled for 10am tomorrow, so was pleasantly surprised that they could get me in so quick and that it wasn’t super early in the morning but wasn’t in the afternoon.  You can’t (or aren’t supposed too) eat for like 4 or more hours before going so morning is easiest but I don’t want to have to be there at like 7am.  So ya, worked out.  They gave me something to show contrast in my digestive system, Redi-cat or something “berry smoothie”.  I’m guessing it’s not very tasty, add to that the fact that i don’t really like berry flavored things, I’m not very psyched to drink it, but whatever, has to happen.  Guessing drinking it won’t suck nearly as much as a bone marrow test! 😛  Supposed to drink that thing (it’s like 16oz or something) the night before, and then their’s this thing that looks like an overgrown half and half from a restaurant (similar style container like 2x or 3x bigger) that I’m supposed to drink an hour before getting scanned.

Oh, and something I wasn’t sure about that no one could answer before going in is that yes, it does still hurt after.  It’s not nearly as painful as when it’s happening, not even close, but their is still an ache in the bone.  Slightly feels like when a muscle is sore from working out too much but it’s not actually the muscle that hurts.  Pushing on the area doesn’t really make it hurt more (or at least very little more, not super sure).  I’m not sure how long the anesthesia last, so we’ll see later but I had it done at like 10:00am or 10:30am or something and it’s 4pm now, so it’s probably not going to be way worse than it is now.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 at 2:18 pm and is filed under Hodgkin's lymphoma. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.