Biopsy Day

As we were pulling away from the house we had a bright rainbow over the hills. Had to stop to let Rory get a picture. Then she kept taking pictures of the sunrise ... I'm not sure it was anything special, except that she doesn't usually get to see them. :+) Got to the hospital at 6:25 for the 6:30 check-in, and by 6:40 we had been walked down to the office for the procedure. All good signs getting this day started!



For the blood draw Rory got a phlebotomist she hadn't seen before. He let her chat the whole time, telling stories about the girls and their recent trip to Houston. She just kept right on talking through both of his two standard attempts. As he walked back through the nurse's station, we heard him say, "Well, darn!" They don't normally make a third attempt, but he seemed a little peeved with himself (he said phlebotomists sometimes take it personally when they miss!) and came back with another hot pack. Third time was the charm!

Almost exactly that same time the procedure tech started talking about what was going to happen, and 30 seconds later the doctor was there. They actively use the CT scanner to guide where the needle is inserted. It was interesting they used words like "drop it in" and "insert" rather than anything invasive. After the doctor made it sound like she essentially wouldn't even realize anything was going on, the tech told her that it would really be like a little bee sting, numbing meds, then another little sting as it advances, followed by numbing meds. Apparently the bone part doesn't numb very well, so that's normally the most uncomfortable. The whole procedure was supposed to be 10-30 minutes. According to the nurses there might be 1-2 hours of recovery, and according Dr. Optimist we'll be on the road for home 20 minutes after getting back from the procedure.

Sure enough, Rory was back to the prep room after only about 15 minutes. It was "a little more than a bee sting" but the only external evidence is a standard bandaid. No biggie! We were back home by 9:30.

The fates apparently knew there was a small window of time where we don't currently have any medical things scheduled, so Rory got a call the sleep center to say they just had a cancellation for this weekend. Sounds like another sleepover for her at the hospital on Sunday....