Today was a FULL day. So many appointments: dental appointment, lung tests, CT scan, bone marrow test, biopsy. At two different hospitals! Buuuut the hospitals are right across the street from each other (and attached at some point too, though I don't the pathway between these particular two). Mike and I not-so-jokingly refer to the area as the Hospital District, because it's 4 hospitals all next door to each other. I know at least three of them are attached!
Anyway. Fellows from the BMT team performed the biopsy today instead of the oncology team, which was weird. As one of them was walking me to the room, I asked for the liquid codeine the oncology team always gives me before the procedure. She said they didn't have any painkillers; they would just freeze me. Freezing! For a biopsy! Even *with* the codeine it still hurts like hell. For some perspective, in Montreal they gave me morphine via injection and Ativan together to help with the pain pre-biopsy. No painkillers at all? We got to the room then, and I looked in and saw an unfamiliar pair of doctors looking at me, saw all the equipment for the biopsy on the table, and I guess all the stress of the day's events and upcoming transplant just kind of peaked and my brain just noped the fuck out. I said I was going to the bathroom and ran away, and heard one of them yelling at me not to run. I came back and asked if they could get codeine from somewhere else, and I heard myself talking so fast, and then I just slunk to the floor and started rummaging through my purse for my painkillers. It was so weird, because it wasn't like I was making a conscious decision to do any of it---it was like I suddenly went on Crazy Person Autopilot. The two doctors in the room came out to see me, and the head doctor (who was to perform the procedure) was so nice and started talking to me like i was five. Suddenly it dawned on me what I was doing; although sitting on the floor wasn't really striking me as odd (though maybe it should have), it was my refusal to go into the room that I suddenly took note of and made me wonder wtf I was up to. It was so weird. Like--I suddenly realized what I was doing, and suddenly noticed the strange affection the doctor's voice had taken. I managed to snap out of it and enter the room finally, and the head doctor made conversation with me and tried to distract me while we waited for the codeine I found in my bag (just regular codeine tablets--not the liquid kind that oncology gives me) to take effect.
After awhile I had calmed down and they did the bone marrow test and the biopsy. He was actually really good at it and it didn't hurt as much as some of the others. For those keeping score, this is bone marrow #10 if you count the ones done in Montreal, and biopsy #4. Ahhh!
The best (or worst) part of all of this is that the doctor was pretty hot. I felt really bad about freaking out afterward and apologized to him and he just laughed it off. Just as I was thinking I didn't need to be TOO embarrassed as I'd probably never see him again (I had never met him or the other fellow before, as they weren't at my initial BMT consult and weren't on the oncology team), he told me we'd be seeing plenty of each other during my transplant treatment, both on the ward and in the clinic. Well then! It's a good thing I'm fast at overcoming embarrassment, ha. It's a good thing though, because I have someone attractive I can look forward to seeing, so that's a good distraction from all the bad stuff.
No comments:
Post a Comment