um, ow

Lung test? No problem. Blood test? Done it a million times. Echocardiogram? Meh, not too bad. Bone marrow biopsy? !@#$%&*!@#$%&*

Well, not really. It happened too quickly and hurt too much to really choose any words; it was really more of an AHNNNGG. That WebMD page I linked below describing the procedure was very accurate. NOT fun. I could certainly live my life with never having a bone marrow biopsy again. Yeesh. Walking creates some twinging back where she stuck the needle in (two spots on my lower back, in the hip bone), but it's not really a *major* pain. Unfortunately, there's also a mental component to this, as I tend to think back to the procedure when I feel the twinge.

And yes, it was an ECHOcardiogram, not ELECTROcardiogram as I misheard the other day. All of the stuff today was to see if the cancer is anywhere else. We'll know the results of all this on Wednesday. I'm expecting them to say Hodgkin's disease; the only surprise will come if they say they found it somewhere else. Finding it somewhere else would be the difference between Stage II and Stage III, and although I don't really know the difference between them, I know that Stage II is better. :)

The bone marrow biopsy put a big dent in the upbeat demeanor I've had so far. I'm glad my dad was there with me. (This really was the first true pain of this whole adventure; I know everyone was praying and sending mojo for Tuesday's biopsy, but heck, I was asleep for all that. Today was hard to bear.)

Tuesday: PET Scan (also a dentist appointment in the morning, but that's just a regular checkup)
Wednesday: Chest X-Ray again, meeting with doctor who did the neck biopsy, then meeting with the oncologist