To Biopsy or not to Biopsy...

Today was a wild ride of cancer crazy.  Spent the better part of the early day at Harper Hospital, where all of the surgeries and procedures for Karmanos happens.  When I got my diagnosis last month, the doctor said that my CT scans were with the pulmonary guy, who was going to decide if they were going to try to biopsy one of the spots to confirm that it was the return of the Melanoma (likely) or a new type of cancer (considerably less likely).  There was a question of safety based on location and size of the nodes.  I thought that since it took three weeks for the biopsy people to call me that they had just decided it wasn't worth it.  Nope, they called and scheduled me last week, so my mom and I made the trip downtown, since I was going to be under sedation and couldn't drive myself back home.

Get to the hospital, and the one thing I notice when we aren't in a Karmanos lab or clinic is that you really do hurry up to wait.  They don't know you name and they don't care about your story.  You're a name and a patient ID to them.  At least when you're in the waiting area.  Once I got called back, there was a little more personal care, as in the nurse knew my name and we had a couple of nice chats.  I got my port all hooked up and that started the line of doctors and nurses that were going to come into the cube asking me the long line of various questions.  Started with the anesthesiologist.  "Have you eaten this morning?   What meds to you take?  When was the last time you ate anything?  Who is this with you today?"  I'm pretty sure he hadn't looked up from his computer until that point.  And when I told him it was my mom, he looked up to acknowledge her and then he did a double take.  I come from a long line of good genes.  I don't look my age and my mom certainly doesn't look hers.  He looked back to me and asked "Did you just say you're mom?"  And I nodded.  And it went from a show all about me to a show about my anesthesiologist hitting on my mom.  The man was practically tripping over himself.  It was funny, and actually kind of embarrassing.  He stuck around after finishing his questions, to chat for a few minutes, and then he left.  My mom and I were giggling at what had happened, and as usual it was obviously my fault that my mom was being hit on.  He popped in one last time, just to see if we had any more questions, which made us laugh even harder.

They rolled me into the procedure suite, and they tell me that I'm going to do a CT scan first so that the doctor could make sure where the node was (Ummm.. wasn't he supposed to know this already?) and then decide if he was going to do the procedure (Again, shouldn't he know this?).  The nurses let me hop from my bed onto the CT machine, and then one of the nurses tells me that I'm going to need to roll onto my side for this, and that I'm going to be tied to the bed.  Yeah, that got a highly inappropriate giggle from me.  It got a couple of chuckles from the other nurses as well.  She kept trying to come up with other ways to say it, but nothing was working so she continued to go with me being tied up, in not a kinky way.  So I'm rolled on my side, in a fetal position, which is never particularly comfortable, hooked up to an IV, tied up so I can't move and they shove me into the tube head first.  I'm claustrophobic, and while I've never had problems with CT scans, I was told this might be tight.  Ummmm.. Why didn't I take any anxiety meds this morning?  They also weren't going to start my feel good juice until they decided what they were going to do.

Oh, did I mention my fingers were also falling asleep during all of this?  Yeah, it was a great stay in the tube.

In the end, the doctor called my oncologist and decided that he wasn't going to do the procedure.  Based on location and size of the node, it wasn't worth the risk.  If the node were larger (Yeah, glad it's small thanks!) and he knew for sure he could get it on one grab, he would have gone through with it.  Since my doctor could treat me without the biopsy, it was scrubbed.  After I was tied to a table and all hooked up.  Ahhh.. Melanoma.. The gift that keeps on giving.

But, I did get to show off my new tattoos on my back.  The doctor did not appreciate the one, but the nurses all though tit was awesome.  So I'm going with them.  I went with "Fuck Cancer" in a feminine font.  He said he would have preferred "Destroy Cancer"  But I figure I liked my sentiment better.  One nurse also caught the small one I did on the inside of my surgery scar.  It's small, but just as meaningful to me.  It says "Not Today..."  The inference is not tomorrow or the next day either.  I will continue to battle and deal with situations like today, where if someone had just looked at my scans ahead of time, it could have saved a lot of time, worry and me being tied up in a not so good way.  Ah well, live and learn! 

Oh, and by the way...  Anesthesiologist guy came back to see me after I got dressed and was waiting for my mom to be found.  He wanted to see my mom again.  But when she wasn't there, he made sure to tell me how cute he thought my mom was.  Seriously, can't take that woman anywhere!