Paranoid Android Me

Warning: disturbing, but somewhat humorous imagery to follow

I’m sitting in bed, wearing the extra large muumuu considered a hospital gown, when the doctor tells my family and I the news about the results of my biopsies.

I felt so vulnerable and small in that bed and began to squirm as he rattled off the things that needed to be done. I remember feeling a bit faint and lying back in the bed with the words “port” and “bone marrow” began floating into the conversation. I think that was the moment when I began to tear up.

I took a deep breath and just sucked it back in, nodding with each detail he mentioned.

First things first, the doctor wanted samples of my bone marrow to ensure I didn’t have dormant cancer cells in my marrow and he wanted those samples very soon.

About an hour later, I found myself facedown on my hospital bed chewing the end of my pillowcase as he was giving me a local anesthesia into my left hip. I believe there is a moment when something is just so intolerable that your body just gives into the discomfort.

Having studied archaeology as an undergraduate with both human and animal bones for classes, I think this was the moment when my brain was having way too much fun imagining what was going on back there. I could hear the clicking of the needle making its way into my bone. I remember learning that bone is filled with both dense and spongy areas, as well as nerves and blood vessels. Knowing full well that a local anesthesia could only numb so much, I began to tense up.

“Are you feeling any pain?” the doctor asks. Well, technically no, but in anticipation, I began to breath deeply and imagine things in nature, like trees and rivers, to keep my mind from it. The doctor asks: “Are you okay?” I respond: “Mmmhmm” with the pillowcase still stuffed in mouth. Though really I was hyperventilating and saying in my head: please let this be over soon, please let this be over soon. After he actually makes the hole, he tells me next, “this is the part that causes the most discomfort.”

Oh, good to know.

He makes three passes and it’s only the fluid from the marrow, but he needs some tissue, too. By this time, I’m shaking and the pillowcase is a damp and wrinkled mess in my mouth. He finally says: “tomorrow you have to get your port inserted, so how about I’ll try the other hip while you are sedated?”

Oh, thank goodness.

I spend the rest of my afternoon and evening reeling from the news and nursing my sore hip, sitting precariously on chairs like someone with hemorrhoids.

Finally, a man and a woman in scrubs walk in carrying plastic cases. Great, Fric and Frac want blood, I think. I’m still tired from the bone marrow biopsy and just surrender my arms. “Take your pick,” I tell them drily, “I’m still squeamish about blood, but I just had bone marrow taken, so I’m a bit desensitized now.”

I ask them as they are examining my arms for veins: “Why are there two of you? Is one of you an intern or do you need to take extra blood?” They look at each other and laugh, “nah, he’s new to this hospital and we were bored.”

The woman says as they begin getting vials ready: “I walked in during the procedure because they sent me to get some blood and I saw this giant needle coming out of you and thought I couldn’t have done that, I’m such a wimp.”

Funny, a phlebotomist who doesn’t like needles.

I am moved from the IMCU to the fourth floor, used for chemo and recovering surgery patients. A sweet nurse tells me that going to that floor from the IMCU is a good sign because it means I’ll probably leave for home soon. I remind the nurses on the new floor to call the doctor to come in during the surgery, so I won’t have to go through the bone marrow pillowcase chewing again.

Second on the roster, I had to have a port surgically inserted into my body in order to receive chemotherapy and for doctors to take blood. This would happen early the next morning. All in all, it’s a much better ordeal than being poked for each and every procedure and test. However, there is something surreal about having a piece of plastic under your skin.

Early the next morning, a nurse wakes me and said that they would be coming for me in half an hour. I lay there waiting and staring at the clock, slightly saddened that there would be more stuff like this ahead of me.

It felt like by the time I was situated downstairs in the cold chambers of surgery, I was coming to from the anesthesia. My first reaction? I reached and felt the back of my hip and noticed there wasn’t a bandage.

Oh dear.

I then noticed a plastic tail hanging out of the right side of my chest. I traced it back to a pile of gauze and a plastic bandage. I couldn’t help but make a face.

I was wheeled back upstairs to my room, where a nurse began using the catheter from the port to hook me up to the IV. I’m a wee bit horrified, like I could be a character out of a Sci-Fi film and the plastic tail would slither back into my body. I would look like a normal woman, but really could attack some unsuspecting person at will. Or, perhaps I was still coming out of my pain medication.

My oncologist comes in an hour or so later and tells me that there was a miscommunication and he was unable to do the biopsy and will have to do it the next day.

Well, damn.

I’m given the day to recover, but with a sore left hip and a tender right shoulder, I set up the rails in the hospital bed. I look like a person in a bumper bowling alley with pillows surrounding me on both sides, so that I can melt in them and not move.

An oncologist coordinator comes in and talks with my family and I about having a support system through this ordeal and that they could be my advocates in terms of school and work.

It’s an overwhelming feeling that despite these circumstances, there are so many people who care near and far. The amount of support is tremendous and I can already tell this experience won’t be cold and isolating. I had an epiphany that as I work through my own health issues, I want to be an advocate for not only myself, but others as well.

The coordinator notices that I’m writhing a bit in discomfort, but I haven’t asked for my pain medication yet, because I don’t like feeling out of control. I finally ask for the medication, as I’m trying to sleep and a few tears slip out. It’s a small amount and it allows me to fall asleep in a hydrocodone-induced haze.

After some blood work and the second bone marrow biopsy, I’m to begin my first round of chemo.

But I’ll save that for another blog…