#5 Double Whammie Wednesday

In an effort to take steps towards establishing a treatment plan, we opted to schedule a bone marrow biopsy and a Power Port placement surgery on the same day (11/21).   I can't deny that it was hard to sleep the previous night.

The bone marrow biopsy was a second effort to confirm the negative results from the Pet scan the week prior. I had heard quite a few stories about bone marrow biopsies, none of which was encouraging. Again,  it seemed to go very smoothly.

• Physicians love naked people - Undress
• Put this gown on
• Lay on this table
• Find love handle , check,  move back a few inches and start local anesthetic.
• Drill Bone
• Pull marrow out like a wine cork.

I had expected the procedure to be quite painful.  The only thing that really bothered me, and it may have been more out of personal irritation was the doctor tapping on my hip bone while he was numbing me up.  As he was injecting the makeyounumb-acain around the affected area, he took the time to tap my hip bone 4 times with his needle while asking me "do you feel that".  My first instinct was to answer, "how could I not?  You are poking my bone with a needle before you have finished numbing me up and my entire body can feel that", but I managed a "Yep!"   The rest went fine.  The doctor took a few minutes to bore down through the outer bone and into the marrow and then pulled the needle out and dumped some very dark red chunks of bone into a sample cup.  It was pretty cool to see.

Flash forward 2 hours and I was getting prepped for the port placement surgery.  Chemo Ports are used to make the administration of chemo-therapy drugs, and blood draws a little easier.  Chemo drugs have a tendency to wipe out your veins over time and this is apparently a better option.   The port itself is a small triangular cup with a membrane and a catheter that runs into one of two veins that bring blood back to the heart.  It is installed under the skin a few inches below your collar bone and sewn into the muscle to hold it's place.  Hey it is made of titanium and is power injectable!  How bad can it be?
 http://www.bardaccess.com/port-powerport.php

***Angie thinks she is funny****
Prior to the port procedure, Angie explained to me how they disrobe the patient, put them in stirrups to help with breathing and then install a giant catheter to help drain all the fluids they will have to push.  This wasn't the comforting information I needed prior to surgery.  It was apparently great medical humor, of which I didn't pick up on.  Angie was quite amused with herself as she explained she was "just playing" with me.  Pretty low Ang,  picking on the sick guy. :)



I remember being wheeled into surgery, having my arms tucked into my sides and that was it.  I woke up feeling like I had just had the best nap of all time and I was ready to go home.  We waited for a few minutes and headed home to get ready for Thanksgiving.