Monday - Biopsy Day

This morning began with my white count holding steady at 600 and a platelet count of 22,000. (Platelets have the shortest lifespan of your blood, so that's the reason my platelet count fluctuates so widely. I hadn't had any since Friday, which was good.) Platelets are key in things like clotting, so they gave me more today mainly because I had the bone marrow biopsy.

They came in to do it at 11:30 a.m. even though I had been told 1 p.m. One of the doctors commented on how many cards I had on my wall and I replied that I have a lot of people praying for me -- although not until 1 p.m. :-) They prepped me with Adavan (which I am probably spelling incorrectly, but it's basically an anti-depressant and relaxes the entire body.) As they started the procedure they gave me morphine. With the first biopsy I complained of feeling bad when they gave it to me. This time, I began coughing as they began pushing it, like a really bad tickle in my throat that I couldn't get rid of. The doctor told them to stop pushing it immediately because he thought I was having an allergic reaction. We're very thankful that's all the reaction I had. Once I was able to stop coughing they got started. By this time the morphine had pretty much worn off since I'd only been administered a slight amount. They had already begun the local numbing and were ready to head down to the bone. I was only supposed to have the biopsy done on one side, but due to an inability to locate bone marrow on the first side (which we don't know why, or whether or not that's a good thing) they had to do it again on the second side. There was a lot more pain this time since we weren't able to use the morphine. They just kept pushing Adavan, so it hurt, and I reacted by crying in pain, but honestly overall I didn't really care that much. That kept it from being otherwise quite traumatic. We won't know the results until tomorrow or Wednesday, but I will let you know as soon as I know.

Mondays mean a visit from two sweet volunteers who always pray with me. They made their stay brief, because the morphine had me quite nauseous (and a rather alarming shade of color) and I was staring at a sandwich willing myself to get it down somehow. They prayed with us, and I managed to eat the entire sandwich as the antinausea meds kicked in. I have found one that works, and it's a friend indeed.

I'm really sore this evening, and a little off feeling overall, since they gave me such a large amount of the Adavan. I keep falling asleep, and when I'm awake everything just moves rather slowly. Regarding the soreness, the biopsy is done in my lower back. There are two little dimples on your lower back on either side of your spine. That's where they do it. So mine are covered with layers of guaze and rather swollen and sore at the moment. Thankfully the bleeding was minor and easily controlled. It was about 1/2" off of each of the spots from two weeks ago, so I was already a little tender.

Thank you again for your prayers. I know they were quite effective regardless of when my biopsy was done. I spent the procedure quoting Psalm 23 to myself, and noticed shortly afterward an e-mail from a friend containing just that prayer.