Holiday Greetings to you all. With Liz in Seattle (where she ran the Seattle Marathon in 4 hours 35 minutes) from last Friday until this past Thursday, I haven't had a lot of "posting" time, so my apologies to the faithful who may have started wondering if I had fallen off the planet. I'm still here and finally have more stuff to write about.
And by more stuff, I of course mean another bone marrow biopsy and another CT scan. These were both done Thursday as part of a "baselining" effort for the next phase of the clinical trial. These tests are the "before" picture for the next phase. You have to know where you started before you can tell how far you've come. I dropped Robbie off at school at 7:15 a.m. (he was an absolute hero getting up as early as was needed to get in by then) and headed to Georgetown, where I had a 9:30 appointment to get blood drawn for labs. For those of you who have gotten blood drawn, you know the drill: they stick you with the needle, then fill one or two of those little test tubes with blood. For my labs Thursday the routine was similar, except we fill 15 little test tubes of blood.
Then it was off to my appointment with the lovely and talented Katherine (both adjectives absolutely accurate) for my bone marrow biopsy. And although it may lose me some sympathy points, let me say now (as I told Katherine I would) bone marrow biopsies do not hurt. The only "pain" I have ever experienced is from the Lidocaine shots to numb the beef and bone involved, and that pain is akin to a bee sting. Given the pain those shots are blocking, give me the bee. Katherine (henceforth "K") numbed me up, then proceeded with the procedure. Next time you are lying on your stomach, reach back to your lower back, and on either side of your coccyx (for the Carolina folks, that's your tailbone) you will feel the two points where the hip bones lie closest to the skin. This is the sample site. [An aside: "Coccyx" is a great word for either Hangman or Scrabble.] Having already marked her target on my right hip, K. drove the needle into my hip bone (I had to ask if the needle was in yet). The only real discomfort happens here, when they aspirate (or suck out) a marrow sample. Basically, your hip bone kind of collapses in like a juice box being sucked, which gives a weird sensation that I would call at worst uncomfortable. You're just not set up to deal with that particular feeling. It feels kinda like someone grabs your glute and squeezes really hard. Discomfort, but none of the "bite" I need to categorize a feeling as pain.
After the marrow aspiration, K. went in again to get a small piece of bone. Of course, my hip was being recalcitrant--it refused to give up a big enough sample. K. had to go in twice more before we got a suitably large chunk-o-bone. Again, at no point did this hurt. After we finally got the needed 2 cm. long bone core, I was bandaged, turned over, and laid on an ice pack for the next half hour or so. Katherine and I chatted about flying, about growing up in Maine, and about our favorite parts of Northern California (she has in-laws in the Berkeley hills with a view of the Golden Gate from their house). I was deemed fit for duty, then sent for my CT scan.
The CT scan was very routine once I got on the machine. Of course, before that happened I got to drink another quart of Berry Smoothie Readi-Cat 2 Barium Sulfate Suspension. Yum. Think of drinking cold, blueberry flavored wallpaper paste. A quart of cold, blueberry flavored wallpaper paste. I was in the waiting room (this was the second of three waiting rooms I would occupy while waiting for my CT scan) with a really nice guy named Gregory. Gregory had never had a CT scan and had never experienced the joy of the Berry Smoothie. I gave him the same advise I would give you--chug. Fill up the cup, take a deep breath, turn off your brain, and just drain that cup in one long chug. If you sip Berry Smoothie, you will never, NEVER finish Barry Smoothie.
Gregory didn't listen. He took a big gulp of the first of the two 450 ml bottles, made a face, then started sipping. He finally finished his first bottle (I had long since finished both) and was working on his second when they came to get us for the scan. The radiologist told him he had to finish; he countered that he would in fact regurgitate if he tried. Don't sip the Berry Smoothie.
About Gregory: Gregory has colon cancer. He also has a 23-year-old daughter who he has raised alone since she was 3. He's afraid to tell her what the doctor told him--that colon cancer can be hereditary. I told him that he owed it to her, and we brainstormed on some ways he could get the news to her without the face-to-face confrontation he dreaded. I think we came up with a couple of good ideas.
One last on this--Gregory found out about his condition after a long-delayed colonoscopy. His cancer could have been caught much earlier. For those of you who, like me, belong to the 50+ club, get a colonoscopy. I've had one. The worst part is the fasting beforehand and the--oh, how to say this--colon cleansing you have to do the day before. The procedure itself is a non-event. You owe it to yourself and to your loved ones to have it done. Quit farting around (pun slightly intended) and get the thing scheduled.
Now that I'm baselined, I'm waiting for my Revlamid, the drug I'll be taking for the next six months. According to Jenny--my trials coordinator--only one patient so far has shown any kind of ill-effect from the treatment. One lady in her late seventies developed nuetropenia for a period, but it was controlled.
So here we go. Liz is on her way to Georgia (where she is running a 40-mile trail run tomorrow) and returns on Monday. I've pretty well recovered from the biopsy with just some residual soreness at the insertion site. Robbie and I are going tonight to see our friends, Kathleen and Calvin. All in all, life remains pretty good. Hope your holidays are happy and blessing-filled.
Tim
