cancer – day 11

You know, if it weren’t complicated, the name on the chart probably wouldn’t be Cynthia Miller.

I ended up being up too late last night given that I knew I had to be up early to go to the biopsies. But Mark had to work after dinner, he had a conference call at like 9:30PM, and so I spent some time responding to e-mails from people on sactango who had sent me notes after hearing about the cancer (more on that later, I promise), and next thing you know it’s 11:30PM and too late for me to take an Ambien to make sure I get a full night’s sleep before a long medical morning. I took a half a pill, though, to help me fall asleep.

Mark, unfortunately, had forgotten to take his allergy medicine yesterday morning so by late last night his breathing was pretty labored and I gave up trying to sleep at 1AM because there was no escaping his snore, poor guy. I can’t imagine having bad allergies and not being able to breathe. Anway, at 3AM or so I finally gave up on trying to even stay still to rest and hope to sleep, and instead I quietly got up and went in the living room to curl up on the LoveSac (what a ridiculous name for a chair, but it’s this amazingly comfy smooshy huge bean-bag thing and the site of the best nap you’ll ever have) and I snuggled in there to respond to the rest of the sactango community e-mails. That took until 5:30AM, when I finally went back to bed and slept an hour because Mark wasn’t snoring anymore.

My alarm went off at 6:15AM, since I had to be at the RAS building at 7AM for the first biopsy. Thank goodness RAS (radiological associates something-something) is only about a mile from Mark’s house, that was the whole reason for staying at Mark’s last night. (I hate getting up at four in the morning at home because of an early appointment in Sacramento!) So Mark drops me off at 7AM, and I’m supposed to call him around 10AM when he can come pick me up.

Diane Miller was my first tech this morning, and she put in the cath for the contrast dye they were going to use in the MRI biopsy. Uck, I’m already so sick of needles, and here we are, just a few days after an IV for the colonoscopy, stabbing my right arm again. Granted, different spot, but she still had a hard time getting the needle through. . .she said I was building up scar tissue there. So of course I offer up my left arm, because I have “good” veins on both sides. But then she said that since the primary cancer is on my right and that’s where we have the possibility of lymphotomy, I should keep using my right arm for all the needles as much as possible now because they’ll have to use my left arm for everything for the rest of my life. If they remove even a few lymph nodes, it affects the circulation of blood for that arm, so it won’t have “good” veins anymore. Better to use it as much as possible now, was Diane Miller’s advice.

So they take me in for the MRI biopsy. I have to lay face down again on the MRI table, but this time they have to pinch my right breast to keep it completely still for the scans and biopsy. But the least pressure on my right is painful because of the complications they had in the first biopsy and how tender it still is as a result. So I’m in tears because this little bit of pinching is so painful. They asked if I could tolerate it for a little while and when I asked how long a “little while” is and they told me 30 minutes I was like, “yeah, NO,” and Dr. Norton came back in and loosened the pinchy thing, he actually took it off completely I think. So then they told me I had to be completely still, and take shallow breaths because if I moved it would throw off the MRI scans and mislead where they were putting the needle for the biopsy.

Dr. Norton was much more adept with the novacaine shots and though they hurt it wasn’t as bad as they were for the first biopsy with Dr. Budenz. And he was careful to make sure the area was really numb for the biopsy so I wouldn’t feel that part at all. And aside from the nasty taste and smell of the contrast, the MRI biopsy wasn’t too horrible in terms of pain. But it did cause additional trauma to my right breast, it required a larger incision, and after the biopsy it took a long time to get the bleeding to stop. Like 30 minutes. But eventually it did subside and they took me upstairs for the ultrasound biopsy on my left breast.

But Dr. Norten had to do another MRI biopsy before he could come up to do my ultrasound biopsy, and he wasn’t letting anyone else do mine, so I ended up having over an hour to wait pretty much, I asked the ultrasound tech a bunch of questions while she found the spots for the biopsy again and we talked about what makes the tumor look different from normal ducts and stuff. Meanwhile, the anesthetic is wearing off and my right breast is getting more and more painful. She brings me some Tylenol, but the pain keeps notching up and here I am with tears streaming in pain, really struggling with it when Dr. Norton finally comes in. He offers to delay the left side biopsy a day or two to let my right side recover so I’m not in so much pain and I didn’t want to do that, I wanted to get it over with.

So they tell me to hold very still again and get to work. But man, my pain threshold is already really pressed at this point and at one point while he was just doing the novacaine prep on my left breast I again had tears flowing like a river and I actually choked out “. . .please. . .stop. . .” He said, “just a little bit more” and kept going just a second or two longer then moves the needle to another spot to do more and this painful process continues.

Well, the amount of pressure it took to punch the needle through my skin didn’t surprise me, after having to give Kingsford sub-cue IVs every day last year when he was dying with kidney failure. But then it was incredibly difficult for Dr. Norton to get the biopsy needle through my apparently very dense breast tissue, and that did not feel good. I swear this guy was getting a major workout trying to push this needle through to the tumor, seriously. It was like trying to open a heavy steel door when you’re a puny little girl, and he had to be exceedingly careful because a sudden slip could go too far and puncture my chest wall and my lung and then we’d have all kinds of trouble. Well, that didn’t happen thankfully. But the biopsy was painful, and he actually had to do four of them on my left. You wouldn’t believe how hard he had to pull to get the needle out each time too. Man, that tissue must be ridiculously dense. Ach, each biopsy was more painful than the last, and by the fourth one I was practically writhing in pain, except I had to stay completely still. Tears streaming, gritting my teeth, my entire body completely tensed to keep my chest completely still, I was so tight I realized at one point that my rear was barely on the table, I was squeezing all the muscles so tight against the pain.

But I held still and let the silent tears flow and scrunched up my face when I couldn’t stand it, but I didn’t move and I didn’t make much noise, some little whimpers when I couldn’t bear it was all. I was starting to think it was never going to end, they were going to keep pushing these huge needles in and out of my body until I passed out with pain. When he finally set the clip in place at the end, my whole body was trembling from the strain against my muscles, and I was nauseous with pain. And the ultrasound tech, May, kept telling me how brave I was, how good I’d done and I was like, “oh please, I’m such a baby, I seem to have no tolerance for pain.” But May told me lots of biopsy patients are much worse, screaming and jerking so that it’s much harder to actually get the sample.

So we’re icing the left now, and Dr. Norton wants to check the right with the ultrasound. But OMG did it hurt, just having the pressure of the ultrasound sensor there, and the right started bleeding again, and he injected some other stuff in the right, I think to help with the pain mostly, and also help stop the bleeding. Another 30 minutes of pressure and ice and the bleeding has finally stopped and they re-pack my ice, bind me up in my sports bra and their bandage wrap which again brought tears to my eyes as they wrapped it to keep pressure on that damn tender right breast. It hurt to take a breath, because the slightest expansion of my chest sent searing pains of additional pressure on my right breast. But they tell me I’m done and I text Mark that he can come get me. It’s a beautiful day outside, and Mark pulls up and comes to take my bag and help me into the car and we head back to his house, about a mile away.

About six blocks later I say to Mark, “darn, my ice pack is leaking and they only gave me enough to swap, not any extras in case one leaked,” and I lifted my shirt (one of Artie’s old Brooks Brothers dress shirts that I’ve always loved and felt comforted by) and my little red t-shirt and felt inside below the bandage to see how badly it was leaking. And my hand comes out all bloody. “Mark, go back.” He’s a bit quizzical and I tell him “it’s bleeding again, a lot. Take me back.” He starts to flip out a little and you know, really quickly pulls over to make a fast u-ey as I’m slumping down in the seat so I’m more lying down than sitting up and I blurt out “no, no, it’s not an emergency, but we have to go back.” His driving calmed down enough and just as I was telling Mark he could just drop me in front and I’d go in, we pulled up to a parking spot right in front of the building (funny how that spot was available right when we needed it) and Mark said “No, I’m coming in with you,” and he helps me out of the car and grabs my phone for me and we get inside.

We get inside to find a short line at the registration desk right in front of the entrance. I took one look and said to Mark, “I’m going in the back, I’m just going to walk and find May or someone to help.” And off I went. Impatient Cynthia, not willing to stand around politely in line bleeding to tell the registration person why I’m back.

I’ll try to shorten the rest of the story. . .it’s getting late and wow am I tired. Anyway, I find a nurse who finds two more and they get me in a room and a gown immediately and get to work pulling off the gauze and getting new ice and putting lots of pressure on it again to stop the bleeding. And they tell me Dr. Norton is going to see me and ultrasound me again to make sure what’s going on. He finds a hematoma building up in my right breast from the MRI biopsy, and decides that he needs to inject the bleeding vessels with a coagulant to help the blood clot. More needling, more pain.

And still, twenty minutes later, I’m still bleeding. I had texted Mark early on to go on home and I’d text him when I could leave. And so I text him again now to tell him it’ll be at least another 30 minutes, but then the nurse tells me they’ve brought Mark in and they’re going to have him sit with me while I keep pressure on this to make sure the coagulant worked before they wrap me back up. We were there another hour or more, and eventually Dr. Norton decided he’d have to stitch up the incision, and then it seemed to finally stop oozing.

We got back to Mark’s at 3PM. They had originally told me I could drive myself there and home, that I wouldn’t need heavy-duty pain pills like the last biopsy, and that I could work that same day. But by the time all this was done they had called in a Darvoset prescription to the pharmacy, told me to do nothing the rest of the day, lift nothing, don’t raise my arms, don’t do any vigorous moving, and take it as easy as possible for several days. What was supposed to be a simple couple of routine procedures fro them had turned into an entire day of work on me involving about ten different techs and nurses with Dr. Norton.

What a day. And holy cow it’s just the beginning. But hey, we learned way back when with my blood pressure and heart condition that if it were a simple case, then it probably wasn’t my name on the chart. Some things never change.