 so I had a bad day
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Aug. 31st, 2023 @ 04:09 pm 
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Yesterday I went into hospital to get a biopsy done on the Thing In My Lung. It didn't go well.
So it turns out all my ideas of what's an unrealistic amount of blood for a fictional character to cough up before they die were just so very, very wrong.
Scene: me, lying on my side, mostly inside a CT scanner. Still under the impression that my skin is in the process of being numbed, but it turns out no, Dr Ravi is actually a few centimetres into trying to slide a veeery long needle into my lung to try and get a sample of the lump in my right lung. This is a challenging one, because he has to slide through 8cm of lung, plus muscle and fat and skin and whatever.
There's oxygen going into my nose through one of those little tubes because they're going to be wanting me to hold my breath when he's getting close.
I feel the urge to cough. I think it's because of the dryness of the air. Tiny cough.
Another tiny cough.
Bigger cough.
Then I feel a deep cough coming on. Got that sort of gurgling, churning sensation that comes with a really nasty case of bronchitis, the kind of cough that's going to be gunky. Productive, as the doctors say.
Oh boy is it. I cough, and a stream of blood pours out of my mouth, soaking my shoulder and running onto the CT scanner tray.
The doctor immediately pulls back and quietly tells the nurses in the room that I'm coughing blood.
Me? I'm coughing up more. Someone pushes the hospital bed I arrived on back up against the tray. They ask me to roll over back onto the bed, they want me on my right side now so the blood doesn't get into my other lung.
In agony, because the position I was in for the biopsy attempt already screwed my shoulder and then I was in a really awkward position to cough and instantly pulled every muscle down the right side of my torso, I obey.
Halfway through the roll, I cough with my face pointing upwards, and a little spout of blood fountains up. I think this might have been the point where the blood spattered the CT scanner, but it's hard to say. Blood is now soaking the chest of my hospital gown too.
They get me onto the bed. Someone grabs my hand and puts a pulse oximeter on my finger. I'm coughing up more blood. A nice young man named Aidan who's either a nurse or a tech has a stack of those special hospital paper towels that are sort of like really high quality versions of the serviettes you get at fast food places. He's holding it in front of my mouth, catching each mouthful of blood and then chucking that aside so I can spit blood and wipe my mouth every time, it's very thoughtful.
The stack is several inches thick. Someone will pass him more before this is done, because it will not be enough.
I have to take a couple to blow my nose as well when the surge of blood is so substantial that it floods my sinuses as well. When it does that I can't breathe through my nose, which is where the oxygen tube is, and where they would therefore really like me to be doing my inhaling.
But then my oxygen saturation level hits 80. Someone grabs a mouth-and-nose oxygen mask and holds that over my face - gently, so that I can push it aside to expel more blood.
(Side note: having something over my nose and mouth used to give me panic attacks. I spent ages working on desensitising myself for the sake of masking up due to covid. This turns out to have been a very good thing, since me getting panicky yesterday would have been really unhelpful.)
Notably, the oxygen coming from the mask feels like a gale. I think someone just cranked open the valve to "NO ALL OF IT". Probably because my SpO2 was at 80 and that's really quite bad actually.
I apologise for getting blood on the machine.
They tell me that's okay.
I ask whether ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) velithya, who is standing outside the lab, is somewhere with a window into the room because I don't want her to see this. They assure me she isn't. (Later I will find out that she was outside the doors, where she could hear me coughing and was somewhat concerned.)
I apologise to Aidan because he's on about his third stack of paper napkins. He smiles reassuringly and tells me it's no trouble at all.
I vaguely hear one of the nurses asking if she should be calling some kind of team. The doctor says not yet.
My oxygen saturation levels have started climbing! Hooray! They are now at about 90, which is Low but not Distressingly Problematic. My left lung is the day's MVP. I say so. The nurses smile and agree.
The flow of blood is starting to slow. I go upwards of one second between coughs now, and while I'm still coughing up A Lot of fluid, it's starting to be a mixture of "blood and sputum", as nurse Emily says with clear approval.
Emily gets a nice warm, damp towel to wipe as much blood as she can off my face. She's very nice about it. I have a sneaking suspicion I look like a character from a slasher film.
I will spend the rest of the day coughing up blood. This becomes a truly disgusting experience once it's started clotting in my lung.
This was, apparently, as much blood as nurse Emily had ever seen in lung biopsies.
The nurses complimented for being a "total trooper" and "possibly the least distressed person in the room". I explained to Emily that from my perspective, while it was a really, really unpleasant experience, it didn't really feel all that distressing. Like, medically and legally, they were the ones who were responsible for figuring out what to do about it.
Emily acknowledged that that was really true in a way that suggested she might try that as a way of reassuring future patients who are anxious about stuff.
As far as I was concerned, my job was to do what they told me to do - like rolling over even though it hurt a lot, for example, and not sitting up until they said I could - and wait for it to be over. There were no decisions I had to make.
After he finished his office hours my oncologist came up to talk about it. He was a bit distressed, because they don't like they don't have an absolutely definite confirmed diagnosis of the lump to go on, and the next step is a lobectomy. They'll discuss it at their multidisciplinary meeting, but it's nearly certain now I'm going to be losing the middle lobe of my right lung.
(Good news: it's the smallest, apparently.)
(Also: my left lung only has two lobes to work with TOTAL and it was doing a pretty good job! 80% is a good effort! With twice as many lobes I'm sure I'll do okay!)
I pointed out to him that since it's growing it'll quite possibly cause me problems eventually even if it's benign, and a full best effort had been made in good faith to get all the information we could. It's just that the lump in my lung is in a really, really unfortunate location, and pretty much unreachable without doing me Significant Harm.
I am good at reassuring my medical people, I guess. The nurses in the lab seemed to get a lot calmer when they realised I wasn't panicking, which makes sense, because if I'd been panicky and, say, hyperventilating that situation would have been a LOT worse... and still their responsibility to handle.
Anyway. Today I am still somewhat sore and absolutely exhausted. My body does not seem to have appreciated that experience. In fairness, it had to grow some new blood as well and that's probably quite tiring to do all in a rush.
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So I was reading this with - not increasing concern, because here you are writing it up, but increasing something - and I suddenly realised I had to lie down.
Thing I didn't know: I can get vertigo from reading about medical misadventures, apparently. I can't say you didn't warn me!
I hope you recover quickly.
![[User Picture Icon]](https://v2.dreamwidth.org/3974986/75896) |
| From: | sami |
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September 1st, 2023 09:26 am (UTC) |
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Eek.
I'm getting better, I hope you felt better quickly too!
Yeah, I was fine by the time I posted the comment. I knew it was a good idea to look away when having blood drawn, but I've never had that effect with text before!
I'm glad your recovery continues.
![[User Picture Icon]](https://v2.dreamwidth.org/5353432/1852929) |
| From: | sovay |
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August 31st, 2023 04:40 pm (UTC) |
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I think this might have been the point where the blood spattered the CT scanner, but it's hard to say.
That sounds dramatically unpleasant even without the likely lobectomy. I had no idea coughing up blood like TB in an opera was a side effect of lung biopsies. *hugs* if useful.
Edited 2023-08-31 04:40 pm (UTC)
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| From: | sami |
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September 1st, 2023 09:29 am (UTC) |
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Dramatically unpleasant is an excellent description.
The blood-coughing isn't a guaranteed side-effect. The problem is that they can't really see that well where blood vessels and airways are on the available scans for such a procedure, and if the needle clips a blood vessel that's by an airway, the blood goes into the airway.
A little bit isn't that big a deal. When the words massive haemoptysis start becoming applicable it becomes a big deal.
In a weird way, I'm sure it will be a relief for everyone if pathology on the Thing, once removed, comes back as "yep that's cancer all right".
![[User Picture Icon]](https://v2.dreamwidth.org/240002/362799) |
| From: | curiosity |
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| Date: |
August 31st, 2023 07:57 pm (UTC) |
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Wowzers.
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As a fellow traveler down the medical misadventures midway in the carnival of life, I am hoping they at least gave you a lollipop or a sticker or something for all of that. Jeezy Creezy. You are indeed a trooper! Gold star all the way. Stay hydrated and best of luck with the making new blood ASAP adventure.
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| From: | sami |
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September 1st, 2023 09:30 am (UTC) |
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Re: Wowzers.
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As soon as I got back to the ward the floor manager gave me not one but two mini tubs of ice cream.
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| From: | curiosity |
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September 2nd, 2023 02:16 am (UTC) |
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Re: Wowzers.
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Yay ice cream!!! Better than a lollipop, for sure.
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