Bone Marrow Biopsy...

There's nothing like starting off your Monday morning off with a bone biopsy.  (insert sarcasm here 😰)  My bone biopsy was done without sedation.  I was totally fine w/ this & it's what I preferred as I have a high pain tolerance & I also have the stress of my job/my boss(es), so I needed to get back to work & not take any more time off than absolutely needed.  And for those questioning, YES, they allowed me to choose if I wanted to be sedated or not.    

I had to lie face down for the procedure.  Not the most comfortable position to be in, but it wasn't unbearable and my oncologist was great about making sure I was as comfortable as I could be, and she got right to work so I wouldn't have to lie there any longer than necessary.  She started with numbing up the area, then she proceeded with numbing the area deep underneath my skin and as far down to the bone as she could.  Little painful the deeper she injected the needle, but again, it wasn't unbearable.  

And then the fun begins.....first they aspirate with a needle to get the "liquid" portion of the marrow.  This is then put onto slides and then stained.  Then they use what's called a Jamshidi needle. The needle is driven into your skin, down through your hip bone so they can then reach the bone marrow.  The Jamshidi needle is then twisted & turned to collect a cylindrical sample of tissue from your bone marrow.  Literally a sample of bone is taken out.  It includes the hard outer surface, as well as the inner marrow "the sponge" that have cells & fat in it. The pressure from this is intense at times.  But mad props to my oncologist who had the nurse on standby with more lidocaine so she could quickly shoot me up when it hit the sweet spot of sharp, shooting pain.  That part was painful, but it only lasted a minute thanks to the smarts of my oncologist & the nurse.  The not so great news....the first attempt to collect the bone marrow with the Jamshidi needle didn't work.  So my oncologist had to go back in again, complete with digging all around again, where she successfully clipped a solid sample. The nurse even let me see the sample after the procedure so that made up for the oncologist having to do it twice.  HAHA!  It was SOOOO cool!!!  

(For those who don't know, I love learning about all things associated with medical stuff,  Rescue/EMT/Lifeflight, microscope slides, understanding how to read/interpret blood test results, etc.  I have always said, that if I could have a do-over, I'd have studied to be a medic on LifeFlight.)   

Below is a pic that shows a visual of the different layers that the needle goes through and here is a web link that explains bone marrow biopsy more in depth and in a way that's pretty easy to understand.  

After the procedure, I became a little light-headed, so I had to hang out post-procedure longer than anticipated.  However, the same cool nurse, taught me about bone marrow slides during this time.  This was of course super cool to me b/c I love learning about medical stuff.  I was extremely sore afterwards and the soreness didn't let up for nearly a week after.  Hard to believe that a tiny little slit (as seen in the pic below) could bring so much soreness with it. The good news is, the soreness was all worth it when I was told everything looked good.  

No lymphoma found in my bone marrow!!!