Bone Marrow Biopsy

My bone marrow biopsy is complete and if I ever hear a doctor say the word biopsy again I am running away to Fiji! Two biopsy’s in two weeks just plain suck. The first was a biopsy on the tumor straight through the neck, which required the use of a “gun” to extract 8 samples of the tumor. This “gun” seemed to be an extremely violent way of removing the tissue and would send pain surging through out the neck every time he pulled the trigger. All 8 samples had to be from different sections of the tumor, so watching a doctor strong arm a giant needle through my neck was unpleasant in itself. Then tack on the amount of pain and discomfort both during and after?? No thank you.

Yesterday, I had the bone marrow biopsy. This was done right at the base of my back and they extracted the marrow from my hip bone. The initial local anesthetic was the most painful part. Then just tons of pressure is all I really felt, until about halfway through the procedure I felt sharp pains going through me. So the doctor stopped to add even more anesthetic. Unfortunately, they had a mirror on the wall and I was able to see the doctor twisting some strange metal object into my body. Turns out he is using what appears to be a wine opener but instead of a corkscrew shaped thing it is a hallowed out metal tube with very sharp edges to twist into my bone. Of course part way through the procedure I hear the doctor tell the nurses “oh look at this, I bent it” ya that was really comforting. So they get a fresh one and finish the job. By the time I got home the all the anesthetic was gone and I had to take some pain meds they prescribed and lay in bed the rest of the day but when you got a sore rear, there is no comfortable position.