Monday, February 06, 2006

Another biopsy

My transplant team needs to know the present status of the cancer. So this morning I went back to Robert Wood Johnson hospital for another biopsy of the bone marrow of my sacrum.

No big deal .. they give me a little local anesthetic and then stick a ten inch (no that is not an exaggeration -- it is really that long, though they only put it into me about 3 inches) needle into the bone at the base of my spine. Then they take some samples of the bone marrow for testing.

It really is not a big deal procedure. Since the topical anesthetic is so effective, I really did not feel much of anything. Well, that was until the surgeon managed to find my sciatic nerve with the tip of the needle. Then a bolt of white lightning shot down my hip all the way to my heel. What a Shot! And without any control at all, my leg jerked and I was immediately afraid I might have caused the surgeon to cause some damage to my nerves or spine. So far as I can tell, nothing happened other than the momentary pinch. They seemed to need to take several samples, but other than the nerve shot, it went easier than the one I did last September.

They are looking for the cancerous blood plasma cells. The test results will be a tracking point for us to compare with the earlier bone biopsy -- the one that was used to determine that I had multiple myeloma in the first place.

On Another Topic
My admission to HUMC has been delayed due to a missing final approval from the insurance company. Actually everything is all complete, but since there is a chance I will join the trial / study they need to re-review the documents to be certain coverage would be available. It could cause a problem if I was already receiving treatment before all approvals were in place.

.. catch ya later ..

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