Alumette
10-11-2006, 07:46 PM
Well the bone marrow biopsy was today. It went fine, insofar as I think it would be hard for something like this to go poorly. Parts of it were even actually funny (more on that later). It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would. Creepy, grody, and unsettling are words I would use to describe it more than painful. That said, it's not an experience I hope I ever have to repeat.
They ran another blood panel beforehand. My WBC is still freakishly dangerously low, although my hemoglobin is back up to normal. The doctor thinks the hemoglobin was just an iron-deficiency thing. The past few weeks I've been eating red meat 3-5 times per week and that seems to have done the trick. So that's good. But the WBC is still way way low. Apparently I'm the talk of the clinic now because every doctor who has seen my numbers is amazed that I'm not bedridden and weak/sickly with infection. So... yeah. It's my superpowers, I'm telling you. :)
It was mostly a lot of waiting. I tend to be a very "go, go, go" person so sitting around the clinic waiting for this and that made me antsy. I prepared for the procedure by wearing my Wonder Woman underoos, and packing my iPod and two stuffed animals (don't laugh. They told me it would hurt). One of the stuffed animals was sent to me by a friend of my parents', who is a nurse and also runs an alpaca farm. She heard what was happening and sent me a teddy bear made of alpaca fur. He's sooooo soft. The other stuffed animal is a little mouse I've had since I was 6. She's been with me through *everything*.
So they got me into the little room and had me lay down on my side. They took the samples out of my hip bone, so all the action was happening behind me and that was sort of unsettling because I couldn't see anything. They numbed my skin, but they couldn't numb the bone, so that made the whole thing just feel creepy. During the injection of the anasthetic, the pressure was goofy on the syringe and the needle popped off and sprayed Lidocaine all over me, so we all had a good laugh about that.
Numbed, properly this time, they took a sample of bone by chipping away at my hip bone. It was pretty creepy feeling--this thing scraping away under my skin, but it didn't hurt too badly. Just felt like some pressure. And did I mention it felt creepy? The second part was the icky part. I had my iPod playing Freezepop's "Here Comes A Special Boy" on repeat through the whole thing, so at that point I just closed my eyes and went to my happy place. And squeezed my husband's hand until he lost all feeling. :) For the marrow sample, they basically vacuumed out some bone marrow. But the thing is, I guess bone marrow maintains a certain level of pressure balance, so when marrow leaves a bone, it creates a vacuum and marrow from other parts of the bone flow into it to fill the vacuum. So I felt it all down my thigh bone, this weird deep suction in my bones...ewwwww. It was a dull creepy pain, this weird suction. *shudders*
Now my hip bone is all sore but it just feels like I got hipchecked hard in a hockey game, so that's no big deal. Couple of ibuprofen and I'll be in ballet class tonight.
I didn't mean to get all wordy and describe the whole experience to you, but some folks were curious about how it would go. And I felt like yappin' about it. :) Anyway, it went fine and I should have the results in a week or two. They are running every possible test they can, to try to finally find out what's up with the WBC.
Oh, one last thing: when it was all over I asked to see the chip of bone they took. That was pretty cool. :) Not many people can say they've seen their own bones.
I'll let you know what the doctor finds out from the tests. Then maybe we'll know what my superpowers are!
Thanks for all the positive thoughts I've gotten from all of you on the boards and in PMs and email. It means a lot and truthfully, it made the whole thing less scary to me.
*hugs*
They ran another blood panel beforehand. My WBC is still freakishly dangerously low, although my hemoglobin is back up to normal. The doctor thinks the hemoglobin was just an iron-deficiency thing. The past few weeks I've been eating red meat 3-5 times per week and that seems to have done the trick. So that's good. But the WBC is still way way low. Apparently I'm the talk of the clinic now because every doctor who has seen my numbers is amazed that I'm not bedridden and weak/sickly with infection. So... yeah. It's my superpowers, I'm telling you. :)
It was mostly a lot of waiting. I tend to be a very "go, go, go" person so sitting around the clinic waiting for this and that made me antsy. I prepared for the procedure by wearing my Wonder Woman underoos, and packing my iPod and two stuffed animals (don't laugh. They told me it would hurt). One of the stuffed animals was sent to me by a friend of my parents', who is a nurse and also runs an alpaca farm. She heard what was happening and sent me a teddy bear made of alpaca fur. He's sooooo soft. The other stuffed animal is a little mouse I've had since I was 6. She's been with me through *everything*.
So they got me into the little room and had me lay down on my side. They took the samples out of my hip bone, so all the action was happening behind me and that was sort of unsettling because I couldn't see anything. They numbed my skin, but they couldn't numb the bone, so that made the whole thing just feel creepy. During the injection of the anasthetic, the pressure was goofy on the syringe and the needle popped off and sprayed Lidocaine all over me, so we all had a good laugh about that.
Numbed, properly this time, they took a sample of bone by chipping away at my hip bone. It was pretty creepy feeling--this thing scraping away under my skin, but it didn't hurt too badly. Just felt like some pressure. And did I mention it felt creepy? The second part was the icky part. I had my iPod playing Freezepop's "Here Comes A Special Boy" on repeat through the whole thing, so at that point I just closed my eyes and went to my happy place. And squeezed my husband's hand until he lost all feeling. :) For the marrow sample, they basically vacuumed out some bone marrow. But the thing is, I guess bone marrow maintains a certain level of pressure balance, so when marrow leaves a bone, it creates a vacuum and marrow from other parts of the bone flow into it to fill the vacuum. So I felt it all down my thigh bone, this weird deep suction in my bones...ewwwww. It was a dull creepy pain, this weird suction. *shudders*
Now my hip bone is all sore but it just feels like I got hipchecked hard in a hockey game, so that's no big deal. Couple of ibuprofen and I'll be in ballet class tonight.
I didn't mean to get all wordy and describe the whole experience to you, but some folks were curious about how it would go. And I felt like yappin' about it. :) Anyway, it went fine and I should have the results in a week or two. They are running every possible test they can, to try to finally find out what's up with the WBC.
Oh, one last thing: when it was all over I asked to see the chip of bone they took. That was pretty cool. :) Not many people can say they've seen their own bones.
I'll let you know what the doctor finds out from the tests. Then maybe we'll know what my superpowers are!
Thanks for all the positive thoughts I've gotten from all of you on the boards and in PMs and email. It means a lot and truthfully, it made the whole thing less scary to me.
*hugs*