| August 31st, 2023 |
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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.
( Content warning for blood, needles. Both of them But More So Than Normal. )
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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