Snap Crackle Pop

Bone marrow aspirations are a pain in the butt. They had me lie down on the table and then the doctor gave me a local anesthetic and then screwed some device into my right illiac crest. It made a crackling that I felt throughout my pelvis and particularly in my tailbone. Once it was deep in my bone, they told me they will count to three and then I would feel a "weird" sensation, and pain. He counted to three, and at that moment it did hurt quite a bit. They did it a second time and it hurt again, like 8 people kicking me at once. But that pain was only momentary, so it wasn't that big of a deal. Then finally he cored out a sample from my hip that was 1 inch long and about an 1/8 of an inch in diameter. He showed me the results: a vial of blood and marrow and the inch-long spongy chunk of my pelvis. He sent the gross stuff off to the lab for a series of tests. They will be looking for lymphoma relapse, damaged bone marrow, infection, etc. I'll know some of my results this week.

It was pretty stressful getting the thing done on Friday. I am getting better at going through these funky procedures, but this one seems particularly invasive to me. The doctors also made it more stressful for me because my appointment was at 10:20 am and they didn't get around to me until12:30.

Now again is waiting for the results. I did get some reassurance from the Renschlers. They say that there is a very good chance that I have low blood counts due to damaged bone marrow. The chemotherapy and the radiation damage the bone marrow, and sometimes it does not come back all the way. You can live a normal life with low blood counts.

This last weekend my City Beach 16's team won the Northern California regional volleyball tournament and we earned a bid to Junior Olympics. This time my club submitted the paperwork and we do get to use our bid. My kids played great.