This Infernal Racket | my life, after cancer

A Toronto-based lifestyle blog by a 2x cancer survivor

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Dear Diary: Bone Marrow Biopsy

November 15, 2014

This was a very painful experience for me. 


I laid in bed as the Doctor started the freezing; the freezing...oh my gosh. I cannot even begin to tell you how much that hurt. The needles pinch your skin and the freezing burns a lot -I had to get a lot of freezing because it didn't seem to be taking effect as much as the Doctor would have liked. After the freezing, I had the actual biopsy and needle aspiration. I’m still trying to figure out the difference but basically, for one they take liquid samples and for the other they take out some of the bone marrow, which is pink and spongy. This part, although painful, was different. Instead of the pinching pain (I found that worse) it feels like someone is vacuuming inside your bone and it travels up the side of your leg and vibrated throughout your body. There was a lot of deep pressure that ached more than any consistent pain. It’s like hitting your tailbone or funny bone and having that really aching feeling … x10. I’d give this pain an 8/10 overall, it was one of the weirdest body sensations coupled with pain.

Looking back, it took about 30 minutes for everything to be done and to be honest it was an interesting experience. It’ll hurt for a week I think, and then I should be okay. The bandage is massive though and that is probably going to hurt more than the biopsy when I have to take that sucker off.

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