2002/07/01 21:09

I went in for my bone marrow biopsy earlier at 4PM. It was definitely weird. They took this rather large needle with a very sharp tip and inserted it into my skin and pressed it against the bone.

And then my doctor pushed. Pushed HARD.

And then he started turning it.

You see, once you get beyond the sharp point of the needle, it's actually a corkscrew shape. So he was screwing it into my bone to extract a "core sample" of my bone and bone marrow, so to speak.

Holy Mother of Christ, that was excrutiating pain like I've never felt before. The whole process only took 10 minutes, but it seemed like it took a whole heck of a lot longer than that.

Then he handed me a bunch of literature on the medication they'll be using for my chemotherapy. They'll be using 4 different types of drugs for my treatment, which is called a "combination chemotherapy." I can't believe I start tomorrow.

I'm concerned with the fact that I couldn't find a sperm bank that could accept me in time today, but I can't put off treatment. There's no way. Every day I get more and more uncomfortable, every day the pain grows and grows, and I don't want to wait any longer.

So my schedule tomorrow is going to start pretty early:

6:30AM - My father picks me up at my house
7:00AM - Arrive at Kaiser Permanente in Santa Clara, they give me some liquids to drink for the CAT scan.
8:30AM - They perform the CAT scan.
9:00AM - Take myself to Admissions to check in for my surgery; this is when they will perform the open biopsy to remove tissue directly from the tumors.
11:00AM - First treatment of chemotherapy.

They're going to be keeping me over night for observation and releasing me the next day, hopefully. So if all goes well, I'll be out of the hospital on Wednesday.

I really am scared.