You have to understand at this point I absolutely believed that I did NOT have cancer, and so therefore could not possibly be undergoing a bone marrow biopsy in a cancer center. But alas, there I was, walking into a cancer center with Anthony at 7:30 or 7:45 on a Tuesday morning.
I must introduce you to an important player at this point in my story. For sake of privacy, I will call her Sweetness. I met Sweetness at another doctor’s office about a year and a half earlier. Sweetness was our allergy shot injection queen of choice. This woman showed my children more patience and empathy than I ever have been able to when it comes to shots. I never know if I ought to play hardball and just sort of force the kids to hold still, or if I should let them decide they are ready. For the record, older child gets 3 shots and younger child gets 1. Sweetness NEVER, and I repeat NEVER rushed my children, she always had anecdotes to help them calm down, and was just a precious part of our allergy injection experience.
Unfortunately, Sweetness experienced some mistreatment at work that was, in my opinion, discriminatory and absolutely out of line. She ended up leaving that job, and we kept in touch because my kids just adore her. She ended up getting a job at a cancer center in town, and was really happy in her new job.
Do you see where I am headed? You should. You is smart.
The day before my biopsy I had reached out to Sweetness because I couldn’t remember what office she worked at, and I basically just wanted to make contact with someone in the cancer world for support. Unbeknownst to me, she had already seen my name on the schedule because she is my oncologist’s MA. Read that again. The woman who loved my children and showed them (and me) all sorts of love while putting sharp needles in their arms was now the MA for my oncologist!
It’s too bad I didn’t have cancer. 🤦🏼♀️
I absolutely, 150% believe that Sweetness was moved from the allergy job to the cancer job for me. (And don’t go getting all, “there is no such thing as 150%.” I know that. I have a master’s in math education! It’s a figure of speech, yo. And yes, I’m feisty. It’s hard to revisit this day!) I believe that it was by the hand of God that I was able to walk into a cancer center in so much shock and with so much anxiety into the arms of a precious friend. I hate that she had to go through the hardship of leaving her previous job, but I cannot express my gratitude enough that at almost every appointment I have had- and there have been a LOT- Sweetness has been there to give me a hug and do vitals and just help me calm down. Thank you, God, for small mercies.
So. We arrive for the biopsy. Sweetness takes us back to the procedure room and we wait for Dr. Now, I know a lot of bone marrow biopsy patients get some sort of anesthesia to make the procedure easier for them, but my doc insisted it was much quicker and easier to just use local and get the, “damn thing done.” (I believe those were her words. Some of this is blurry through the haze of anxiety, shock, and worry.)
If you know me at all, you know that I’m not going to have someone touching my butt without making a joke, so naturally I had to joke that I never imagined Sweetness would one day be pulling my pants and underwear down to expose my hips. I had laid down on my stomach in the procedure table, and Sweetness was exposing and cleaning the skin covering my hip bone (we think it was the iliac crest) where doc was going to do the biopsy.
This particular part of the bone is thin, making it easier for the doc to break into the bone and draw out the marrow. Doc marked the skin, and then began numbing the surface with a local anesthetic. If you have never had lidocaine, it’s pretty much like a bee sting for a hot second. Next, she used a much bigger needle (I don’t know if this is true, but it felt bigger) and numbed down on the bone. This felt like a lot of pressure.
Then came the procedure. She had to insert some kind of instrument and break through the bone to access the marrow. I honestly can’t say what it was or how she did it, but it felt like a whole heck of a lot of pressure until there was some give. It was almost like a, “pop,” when she broke through. Then I think she inserted another instrument through the first and started doing what I can only assume is drilling for marrow. There were some clots (normal), and then came the agonizing draw of marrow. I don’t know any other way to describe it than to say it felt like she was twisting something and drawing the marrow out… like a screw driver pulling a nail out of a wooden stud… except the pain was pretty significant down the leg. It was painful.
The interesting thing is that I remember the physical pain, but I was crying towards the end not from physical pain, but emotional turmoil. It just felt so surreal that I, Meghan, who loves to run and work out and be active and stay healthy, was on my belly while a doc drilled marrow out of my hip. Yes, it physically hurt, but it’s rare for pain to bring me to tears. But boy, was I heartbroken. I was still in denial that this was part of my story, my kids’ story, and my husband’s story. I was not ok with it, I didn’t see God’s goodness in it (in cancer, that is. Sweetness was an obvious angel). And dude, that biopsy hurt! It left me moving slowly and with bone pain for the better part of a week.
I don’t remember how long it took for results to come back. Much to my dismay and no one’s surprise except mine, I did, in fact, have CML, but the number of blasts (groups of immature white cells) was extraordinarily low considering how high my white count had been. So. Diagnosis made. (By the way…. I thought it was REALLY fascinating to actually see the clots and the marrow. I had never seen marrow before, but I don’t want to gross out any readers that might have queasy stomachs, so I will refrain from describing it.)
Oh! But wait! There’s more! Having a biopsy and getting a sure-fire cancer diagnosis was just the beginning! God bless my doctor who has to keep delivering news that was so hard for me to swallow. She had sent some blood out to a lab for a FISH study. I don’t know what that is or if that’s even how it is spelled, but it is basically breaking my blood down to the DNA level to look for other chromosomal abnormalities. It’s not enough that I have leukemia, but we get to now discover how advanced it is by looking at chromosomal abnormalities! What fun!
Next steps after the biopsy? More blood draws. More check ups. Finding out how advanced the leukemia is so that we can pick the right long term chemo for me to take instead of the hydroxyurea. Make an appointment at the Colorado Blood Cancer Institute to get everything rolling for transplant so that if and when I need it, we are ready. Eat copious amounts of chocolate. (Kidding. I didn’t feel much like eating because #chemodiarrhea is a real thing.)
Until next time….
Let There Be Healing 