The Battery

So Thursday the 19th I went through a battery of tests at the hospital so that they can properly determine what stage I'm in and therefore officially come up with a treatment plan. By battery of tests I mean 3, and 2 of those I got to lay down for, it's a rough life. It was a long day for sure, though, I was there from 9am to almost 6pm. I find it interesting that no matter what you're at the hospital for, patient or support, just being there makes you really tired. But as we say, "Whatever doesn't kill you....", just seeing if you've been paying attention.

The first test was a bone marrow biopsy. I now have the utmost respect for anyone who has ever donated bone marrow. The test consists of taking a bone chip and then some marrow to biopsy. They take the sample from the "back part" of the pelvic bone so I had to lay on my stomach, which was good because then I couldn't see what was happening. They use local anesthesia to numb the area and then take the sample. It was brief, less then 10 minutes, but pretty painful anyway. I kept getting this mental picture of my house growing up where we had a huge tool bench in the basement. We had this old manual drill that had a ball at the top that you held in the ball of one hand and then kind of bowed out like a saw as a handle that you turned with the other hand to make the drill bit rotate. This is what I kept envisioning was happening "behind" me. Towards the end I started to get those sweats you get when something bad digestively is about to happen, but I made it through. The kicker was the shooting pains down my left leg when he took the 2 marrow samples.

After that was an echocardiogram. All I had to do was lay on my side, my kind of test.

After that was a PET scan. With a PET scan they inject you with a radioactive sugar. Cancer cells are highly active so they use sugar faster than normal cells so cancer cells show up very bright on the scan. This is how they see if the cancer has spread to other places in the body. After they injected the sugar I had to sit in an isolation booth for about 45 minutes before the actual scan. During this time I had to sip a lovely Barium shake with a tasty berry flavor. It was like a Carnation Instant Breakfast gone horribly wrong. The actual scan consisted of, again, laying on a table for about 20 minutes and then I was done.

I won't have any results until December 2nd and I'm looking forward to having an actual plan of attack. Again I want to say I really value all of the encouraging comments I have received. I wish all of you a very happy and safe Thanksgiving if I don't talk to you before that.

Peace,
Ben