Bone marrow biopsy

I'm going in for a bone marrow biopsy and aspiration tomorrow. Woohoo. I had this done a couple of months ago and it wasn't really that bad, it just felt... weird. The aspiration is where they stick a hollow needle in your bone and suck out the liquid marrow through a syringe. The biopsy is where they essentially take a core sample of your bone including the marrow inside. They normally do both of these on your hip. I remember the marrow from the core sample basically looked like what comes out of a tube of tomato paste. Funky. Luckily I'll be sedated well, but I'll still be awake.

We're doing this because Dr. Goldberg wants to take a look at the marrow before starting the 3rd round of chemo, which would have started last Friday. Up until now we've been primarily looking at the blood counts, but the bone marrow will allow them to better see how well I'm responding to the chemo. So depending on the response we'll continue the chemo or we may postpone it indefinitely. I'm hoping we'll postpone, since it doesn't seem to be doing too much anyway, and the less non-essential treatment the better in my book. So wish me luck! My hip will thank you.

Also I haven't posted in a while, mainly because I feel great (physically, emotionally I've been a little down lately) and I sort of haven't been very interested in getting down and dirty in all the medical stuff right now. My little sister got married last weekend(!) and my friends and relatives have been in town, so I've just been having fun with them and keeping busy and haven't really wanted to think about all this stuff. It's also getting a little harder to deal with all this since there's not a lot of new stuff happening and there is just the dread of the impending transplant. So when I am feeling normal and hanging out with friends and working, it's still a bit of a jolt and kind of a downer whenever I get pulled back into all this. I don't know if I'll ever be able to switch gears smoothly from normal life to being the MDS expert.

Will post more soon. In the meantime, here are some pictures!


At the Radiohead concert with Brian and Johanna (I know I'm not supposed to go to concerts, but I paid a lot of money for these tickets!)


Mmmmm, Brian and I enjoying crepes and coffee


Jenny and Johanna picking Cindy's flowers at Pike Place Market


Happy family!


My little sister is married!


The after-party gang