The Little Family

It has been along time since I last posted.  Many things have changed and many things are the same.  I still craft and sew like an addict.  I recently changed jobs to be closer to home, eliminate my commute and to lesson the amount of stress my previous workload caused.

In October of last year I began to have unbearable back pain and a host of weird symptoms.  The NP in my primary cares' office ordered some x-rays and an MRI.  I was quickly scheduled for the tests.  A week later I was referred to a spine specialist due to some bulging discs, and irregular curve in my spine and a pinched nerve.

You assume that when you see one of these highly educated and experienced specialists that they will treat you well and do no harm.  I was referred to a real jerk who told me I was "Depressed".  I thought he was bat s*** crazy, but followed thru with the physical therapy and took the medicine he prescribed.

After about 5 weeks and his continued statements about me being depressed I sought a second opinion.  I had some new symptoms that were complicating my physical therapy and alarming to my  physical therapist:  Itchy skin, swollen lymph nodes, night sweats, bruising and still a lot of pain. 

On December 17th, I had it out with the fruit cake spine specialist and made a second appointment for later that day.  I saw a second spine specialist who in a matter of minutes and a quick glance at my MRI, set some things in motion that have changed my life.  He noticed that the bone marrow levels in my spin were low and was alarmed that  no one had mentioned this or investigated further the finding on my MRI.  He left the office and came back a few minutes later.  He had called my primary care physician and told he was trying not to alarm me but that there was some potential cause for worry in my scans and I needed some follow up immediately.  So the following Monday, December 21st I saw my primary care physician and was immediately referred to MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Three days later on December 24thm yes Christmas Eve, I spent most of the day at MD Anderson meeting with doctors regarding the MRI findings, my symptoms and an elevated white blood cell count that was not sky but had been elevated for more than 2 years and fluctuated enough to hide the problems brewing inside my blood and bone marrow.

January 4th I had my first bone marrow biopsy with aspiration.  It was a blind biopsy.  The staff at the MD Anderson surgi-center were very kind but it was very painful.  I cannot explain how painful.  They cannot numb your bone, just the skin around where they are going to drill through your skin into your pelvic bone.  After 40 minutes of tying to obtain enough of a sample they finally stopped the procedure, three drill holes later.  I was assured they had enough of a sample.   

I went to my follow up appointment on January 18th thinking I was going to finally find out what was going on, only to be told that I need to have a second bone marrow biopsy as they had not obtained a sufficient sample to complete the FISH studies, the most important part of the bone marrow biopsy and study.

Boy did I have some crazy emotions, anger and anxiety set in as a result of this...