On Bone Marrow Biopsies

First off, I apologize that I haven't written a post in over a month. The last couple of weeks have been crazy (school has started, I've finished consolidation, I've gotten sick and ended up in the hospital, etc.) Because I've finished consolidation, I have had to have a repeat bone marrow biopsy to see if there are still cancer cells in my body. This procedure though is quite confusing, so my post today will be to explain:

What the heck is a bone marrow biopsy?

What happens during a biopsy?

Does a biopsy hurt?

And, Do I have scars from my previous biopsies? 

Before we address what a bone marrow biopsy is, we need to know why I even need to do this procedure. Everybody has bone marrow. It is a spongy substance in your bones that produces cells. These cells become red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. All of those are found in a person's blood stream. When a person has a blood cancer like leukemia, the source of the cancer cells starts in the bone marrow. If the bone marrow is "sick", it produces abnormal white blood cells (cancer cells), which can crowd out healthy cells and impair the marrow. So, after every chemo protocol we check my marrow to see if it is still producing cancer cells. 

Now, what is a bone marrow biopsy? Well, like I said previously, a bone marrow biopsy is a procedure that is done to check my bone marrow. This procedure is done on my hip bone. During the procedure the doctors take a needle and stick it through my skin and my bone until they reach the bone marrow. Using a syringe, they take some bone marrow fluid out. As they are collecting the fluid they also take a little bit of the bone as well. My doctor likes to describe it like soda in a glass bottle. Imagine a glass Coca-Cola bottle. The bone marrow is the coke inside and the glass is the bone. To get the coke out of the bottle, the doctors would stick a straw through the bottle (needle through the bone), and then collect the soda. When they are done, they would also break a little bit of glass off of the bottle.

Does it hurt? Yes and no. I am not awake during the biopsy. They have an anesthesiologist in the room that gives me anesthetics throughout. The specific medicine that I am given is propofol. Sometimes I wake up after and my mom or dad says that I wiggled or moved during the procedure. While I don't consciously remember anything, my body could still feel the needle. So no, the procedure itself does not hurt. But the incision sight hurts for days after. The first 1 or 2 days after the procedure it is very hard to comfortably walk around or lay down. That is just because of soreness. Bone marrow is like hair. You can take a little and it will grow back. 

And finally, do I have any scars from past biopsies? Nope! There is a bruise on my biopsy sight for a couple weeks, but we have not seen any scars from any one of my biopsies. I hope this post helps y'all understand a little better about certain things that I go through. Writing this post helped me clarify some confusions I had with biopsies. Until next time!