Josh and I got to sleep in a little bit this morning before getting up and heading to the hospital yet again. By sleeping in I mean 7:30. Last night around 11:30 my sedation drugs were all worn off along with any other pain medication I had in my system. This port HURTS! Depending on what I did would depend on if I'd feel burning or pulling. Normally I would have been reaching for the Aleve or Ibuprofin, but I
knew I had another procedure today in which I needed to fast for, and I just didn't know if taking something would have been a smart move. There was a lot of tossing and turning trying to find a position that would work for getting some Zzz's. Eventually I found my spot and the next thing I remember were the cats meowing and pounding on the door at 5:30 to let us know it's time for breakfast. Somehow I was able to roll myself out of bed, but even just going down the stairs, the port felt like it was moving back and forth under my skin, which is not a comfortable feeling to have. I just wanted to cry!! Everyone keeps telling me it'll get better and I won't even know it's there after a while. I sure hope that's the case. I did grab an ice pack on my way back up to bed though and I was surprised by how much that helped. Thankfully yesterday we were given a prescription for Vicodin that we filled on our way home from the hospital today. We didn't fill it yesterday because I was feeling so good. I should have known though. I was hoping to not have to take Vicodin, but I've got them now if I need them.
Today's procedure started out like the rest of them. We checked in and I was brought back into one of the rooms. Of course there was a lovely gown waiting for me, but to my surprise, no grippy socks! I can't say I was sad they weren't there. I was told I just needed to remove my shirt for the procedure instead of get naked (for a change) so I changed into the gown and sat on the bed. A woman by the name of Estelle came in with her lovely assortment of needles and different colored vials. She seemed like a sweet little lady until she decided to play rough with my arm. THANK GOD the first poke was a numbing substance because after that I swear she poked me with that needle in the same spot at least 5 times trying to find a vein. I've never run into a situation where a good vein could not be found. She kept saying, "well it's under the skin, but I must not be in the vein because there is no blood. Let me see if I can move it around a bit to find it". Anybody who knows me knows that I HATE VEINS! I hate looking at them. I hate touching them. And I DEFINITELY hate when they're being poked by needles. I was seriously sweating, and had my arm over my face telling myself to breathe. Eventually she said, "Ok, this isn't working. I'm going to stop and we will try somewhere else". Fabulous! So now you're going to do the same thing to another spot on my body? I told myself I was going to be nicer than I was yesterday so I kept my mouth shut. Thankfully she was able to do her thing on the first try in another place, but let me know that I had a bit of blood that dripped out onto the sheets, and not to worry about it. THANKS ESTELLE...
Once that mess was over with and Estelle got her butt out of my room, the rest of the crew came in. The procedure today was for them to take bone marrow samples from each side of my hip essentially. I was told to lay on my stomach, which I did, and the next thing I know is the doctor is shimming my pants down so half my butt is sticking out even though the samples they took were more up by my waist, but whatever. The left side wasn't so bad. There was a bit of pressure, but nothing too incredibly painful. The sedation drugs they gave me almost made me fall asleep actually. The right side was a different story. I could feel everything. They tried to numb up the spot as much as possible, but it just wasn't doing the trick. The pressure and the burning I felt was awful. They were good about being quick about it though. Apparently my bones are just super strong so it was hard for them to get in there. I will take that as a compliment! The point of them doing this procedure is to make sure that I don't have cancer in my bones. If I did, this would require me to have twice the amount of chemo treatments. Dr. Londer has been great about checking all bases so we know exactly what we're dealing with, and that nothing is missed. I appreciate his proactive nature more than he knows! He thinks the bone marrow test will come out normal, and of course we have our fingers crossed too, but you just never know. I leave this in God's hands.
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