I am happy to say I am posting from OUTSIDE of the hospital! All-in-all it was a short stay (I can say that now because I’m discharged and at home and it can’t be jinxed, like the time before last!).
I was admitted on Tuesday morning and ended up being discharged on Wednesday night. But lest you all think all that time was spent in productive biopsy-getting, let me tell you what really happened. Less than three hours of my 36-hour stay was spent accomplishing what it was I was there to get done.
Tuesday I was settled into my room by 11:30am, at which point the waiting began. Thankfully I didn’t have to have an IV for liquids or anything, so I was rather unencumbered. And I had a beautiful view from my 7th floor window.
This is the sunset the first night from the end of the hallway.
The novelty of the beautiful view soon wore off; I was in a hospital waiting for a lung biopsy after all, not in a hotel waiting for my massage.
And wait is what I did all day on Tuesday. That and spend lots of time “visiting” with the overachieving student doctor who was assigned to my case. And by “visiting” I mean him asking me every question under the sun and me becoming more annoyed with each additional question. Clearly by now I have a chart a mile long, READ IT!
What’s funny is that the standard response for why they’re asking all these questions is, “We want to hear your side of the story to see if what you understand is what we have recorded.”
B.O.L.O.G.N.A.
It’s so they don’t have to wade through the gigabytes of data that have been collected on me so far.
Deep, cleansing breath.
So Tuesday was a wash. But near the end of the day I did get promising news that I might be lucky enough to get in for the lung biopsy in the afternoon. What this meant for me now was no food or beverage after midnight.
Being a fan of food and beverage, my first question was, “When in the afternoon will it be? One o’clock seems very different than 5 o’clock when one isn’t being allowed to eat or drink.”
Of course, no one knew. The doctors said the nurses would know. The nurses said the radiologist communicated that information with my doctors. Clearly someone hasn’t seen me when I haven’t had breakfast and lunch before because they’re playing with fire. I was surly to begin with. Add a drop in my blood sugar and an increase in my moodiness and whew it could get downright ugly!
So after I finally explained to them that it didn’t make sense for me to be NPO (no food/water) for 17 hours (assuming a 5pm appointment), they got a time of 1pm.
The next morning I did everything I could to entertain myself and keep my mind off the impending lung biopsy. Of course, my main coping strategy: eating, was off-limits. So I had to get creative.
I spent a little time working on some embroidered napkins for Joansy that are her birthday gift. I walked around the museum-like hospital admiring the views from the windows. I went back into my room and caught up on some emails. Then finally I just gave up on it all and went to sleep. By then it was noon and I figured a nice, hour long nap would do my surliness some good.
And it worked. I woke up just after 1pm in a relatively rested, relaxed, and good-humored mood. I figured the transport people were on their way at any moment so I just laid in bed and watched TV.
Unfortunately the clock was right above the TV, so I was in effect watching the clock more than the TV. And with every revolution of the second hand, my blood pressure began to mount. Finally, at 1:45pm, I called my nurse (no, really, I called her! They carry phones and we can call them!) and asked what was going on. She replied that my procedure had been moved to 3pm because the brand new machine (no, really, they just moved into that hospital less than a month ago!) broke down and they were waiting for the repair people.
Of course, all I heard was, “You have to wait longer to eat or drink something.”
So now I’d run out of options. I’d already done as much embroidery as I could do at that moment. The internet held no interest to me. I was wide awake from my nap. And I was hungry enough to contemplate gnawing on the fleshy part of my palm.
More walking around the pretty hospital that looks more like a museum.
Finally the time comes, they roll me down to Interventional Radiology in my bed (I hated EVERY minute of that! I CAN WALK! LET ME WALK! It’s our policy. IT’S A STUPID POLICY!)
They get me inside the CT room and the radiologist finally comes in to explain the procedure:
- they will hook me up to an IV and give me some happy medicine to calm me down (little did they know they were going to need more happy than they first anticipated!)
- then they will use the CT scanner to locate and help them mark the node on my lung
- he will then slowly and by using the CT scanner to guide him, move a 19 gauge needle into my back, past the pleura (the lining of the lung) and finally into the center of the 1cm node that is attached in my lung near my chest wall
- once the needle was in place, the center of it would be removed and a narrower needle inserted and used to collect the biopsy samples
- then he will take 7 or 8 biopsies of the node for examination and to begin cultures to see what they grow into
Most everything he described happened exactly as he had explained.
He located and marked the location of the node (which was on my inner chest wall) on my back (does anyone see where I’m going here? Read the title of this post!). Then he inserted the 19 gauge into my back stopping every centimeter or so to leave the room to get a new CT scan of where he was going.
This continued until he reached the node attached near my chest wall. My chest being on the opposite side of my body and much closer to the node.
Instead of going through my chest to get this stupid node, and thereby using a much shorter needle!, they went through my back, all the way through my lung, and then up to the chest wall to get this node.
Apparently the reasons for going in such a circuitous manner was twofold: first, the node moves when I breath and could be hidden from access behind a rib, requiring an awkward (but still shorter!) angle of approach; and second, when recuperating, you have to lay on whichever side they entered on, so it’s more comfortable for me recuperate on my back than on my stomach (which I agree with).
The best part was when he pierced my pleura which hadn’t been thoroughly sedated and it literally sent an electric shock (anyone from the country, think cow fence shock!) through my chest and cause me to yell out and lift off the table. To which the good doctor responded with, “Please don’t move.” I may have swore at that point.
After finishing but before letting me go he explained that I shouldn’t cough hard or use long sentences for the next two hours as either of these could reopen the hole they just filled with my own blood (to help it clot closed). Swell.
So there you have it. More details about my lung biopsy than you ever wanted to know.
Frank Notes 
