Holy moley!

Sorry if this post is a little goofy. I'm still pretty drugged up.

I went into the SCCA at 7:00 am this morning. That's when they open the doors. You know how it is.... when a business opens its doors, they're never ready for business. It's the same for hospitals.

I was double booked for two events at 7. One was supposed to be a simple blood draw and a pickup of a 24 hour urine kit. The second was a consultation for what I'll describe below.

It seems there were a couple of complications with the orders for my blood draw...... I was seen at 7:25 and the whole (7 vial) draw was finished at 7:35. This is the first time anything like this has happened at the SCCA, but they have a very strict policy about patients being on time, and if I'd been 25 minutes late, they would have probably rescheduled me. Whatever.

Anyway, the nurse upstairs wasn't too hapy about the delay but we moved on. If you remember from yesterday's post, I was scheduled to get another bone marrow biopsy today. You know, suck out some bone marrow, do a core sample of the bone itself.... No big deal if you're a fan of Mengele or DeSade.

The first words out of the nurse's mouth were, "Did they tell you we're going to be taking samples from both sides?"

"Uh, no! Bilateral?"

"Yeah, sorry they didn't mention it."

So that started well (NOT!)...... My least favorite procedure on the planet and they're going to do it twice today..... as a surprise...... I was glad I'd opted for a bit more than the local anesthetic I'd gotten the first time.

Ed was there and he watched me drift off into the land of the calm. See, I hadn't chosen complete sedation. There's a level between "local" and "unconscious" that seemed just perfect for what I expected..... but now that my expectation had been doubled, I wondered about my choice.

So I dissolved a pill in my mouth and then swabbed a special narcotic lollypop around my cheeks and gums. I didn't really become unconscious.... I just got to a special level of 'sedate' that Ed probably would like to see more often.

And then....... and then...... they pulled down my pants, flipped me on my belly like a cheap date, and poked me with a local anesthetic. (Actually, she was terrific..... very communicative and tactile. I couldn't have asked for better.)

First came the right side. Local injection below the skin. This was followed by another local that penetrated the muscle all the way down to my hip bone. Slight pokes followed by a stinging sensation. No big deal.

And then....... and then........ a giant freaking poke from what felt like a trocar (you don't wanna know). Her next words were, "This next part is gonna hurt."

She sucked blood and bone marrow into the Syringe of Satan.

Now here's the deal as I understand it. The bone is surrounded by a nice thin layer of nerves sorta like Saran Wrap. You can numb part of it with the local, but the net effect of sucking blood and marrow out of the bone is that the layer of nerves gets slammed against the bone because of the change in pressure. So if you can imagine, a rather large area of sensitive nerves becomes highly active when the vacuum cleaner effect is applied.

It hurts. OMFG it hurts. I mean...... it HURTS. I've crashed motorcycles at incredible rates of speed, and this procedure HURTS. Pain shoots down your leg, across your ass, and part way up your back.

Did I mention it hurts?

Oh, and that's just part one of the pain issue. Now she has to get a sample of bone by using a core sampling device. Basically it's a hole saw that's manually operated. She applies pressure, twists back and forth until it's sunk far enough into the hip bone, and then she yanks it out like a wine cork.

Did I mention it hurts? Should I mention she didn't get enough the first time and she had to do it twice on the right side? Did I mention that the second sample hurt too?

Ok, so now it's over....... NOT! We still have to do the left side! OMG, OMG, OMG, OMG! And it begins again. This time the pain goes all the way down to the back of my knee and up to my shoulder blade. Fortunately her core sample got enough bone in the first pass that we didn't have to try it twice.

But now I'm drugged up, lying on my belly with my pants down, somewhat shocky, and I have matching bandaids on my upper cheeks. Wow, I feel like Superman!

Ok, it's over...... I flipped over, pulled my pants up, and layed there eating graham crackers and drinking juice until Ed returned from his appointment. We went to the pharmacy, got some paperwork, and came home. Now I'm just sitting here like a zombie. I've been sitting here for 3 hours.

Did I mention it hurts?

I'm gonna go to bed.