linen, cotton and needles
Let a few doctors into your life and they all seem to come equipped with needles!On wednesday I performed a great act of faith. All my attempts to confirm a time for the biopsy on my lung were fruitless, and I did not receive the promised phone call. So I simply turned up at the hospital at eight o'clock and waited. After several dead ends i finally got to the cardiac (!) unit and after about twenty minutes my thoracic surgeon turned up for cardiac clinic, did a double take when he saw me and after seeing an urgent patient took me over to the CAT scan unit and left me to be organised.
By the time he was through with his clinic, I had had my preliminary scan and had a little 'crosshair' target drawn on my chest. It was incredibly windy, almost cold on the cat scan machine but the room was large, bright and airy and I had a book with me. They backed me out of the machine enough so i could read and warned me not to move my torso as it would ruin the target so carefully set up.
My surgeon arrived gave me a painfull injection that would stop me from suffering too much and said, 'That's the easy part done.' Then IMMEDIATELY inserted a long skinny needle into my lung. I mean, count to five at least! It was not numb yet! So I felt it when he grazed a rib on the way in.
This time however, I was prepared for pain and it really was not too bad. Lying still, breathing very gently because somehow the knowledge that shiny steel was running me through was a little intimidating, was a tad tedious.
I could hear the sound of conversation, not the content; although it felt as if my ears stretched to rival Dumbo's. I lay still and breathed a little harder, just enough to prove that yes, I could still feel, and yes I definitely could tell I was impaled.
And then sensation stopped just in time for my doc's return to create enough suction with the syringe to pull out blood and tissue. Slides were made, I was told 'press down, on a piece of cotton gauze sent off to X-ray to ensure my punctured lung would still inflate, deflate as normal.
Warned to return immediately to Emergency if I felt sharp pains breathing or got breathless and to tell them I'd had a lung biopsy so they could stop me from dying (verbatim quote), I was free to go. Three and a half hours after I arrived.
My lung did not collapse, I have slept a lot since them and this morning managed to get deodorant spread over my right armpit on the third try although my left leg tried to slide out from under me as I focused my attention on my grip of the recalcitrant left hand.
I ironed my linen pants before I put them on. Fresh, crisp and clean has become important, the hallmarks of control, of normalcy in my world gone slightly mad.
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