An exciting week

A busy week this week.

Had my bone marrow biopsy on monday.  Nothing unusual happened.

On Tuesday I had the Total Body Irradiation Planning (TBI to us pros).  I will be getting three days of irradiation when I go back to hospital in two weeks, 1 hour in the morning and 1 hour in the evening.  The planning consists of me having a CT scan while laying down with my arms crossed, legs up, and bags stuffed next to me.  This is used to work out how where to stick the lead shielding so that I get a nice even dose and to protect my lungs and kidneys.  Apparently there is a 5% mortality rate from this

Today I had the dental review, ECG, and lung function test.

The dentist found a few spots of infection in my wisdom teeth (in the gums) and a little spot in a root canal I had cleared out a few years ago.  The infection is minor and is normally not much of a problem but when you have a transplant it can be a major problem.  It can cause an extremely bad infection and I am guessing this could mean something like septic shock in the extreme case?  The upshot of this – out with all four wisdom teeth and a bit of a dig into the root canal to clear out a loose piece of crap.  This bit of fun will take place at the end of next week.  At least it will be done under a general anaesthetic.

The ECG was routine, stick a few sensors on the chest and ankles and let the computer do its thing.  Took all of 5 minutes.

The lung function test was a bit more interesting.  The part I was expecting was OK – blowing into a machine a few times.  I had to blow a bit harder than I expected.  If I blew for much longer I was half expecting a lung to come out.  I had to do this about 10 or 15 times.  Still, not too bad.

The hard part of the lung function test was the first part – a blood sample to see how much oxygen is in my blood.  The blood is not taken from a vein but from an artery a bit further into the meat of my arm.  The needle goes in vertically.  I was OK for a minute or two while the nurse searched around for the artery with the needle, the damn artery would not behave.  Now I should mention that me and needles like this don’t get along – we have a bit of history.  I can handle taking blood in the usual manner, even with a bit of ‘searching’ and you can give me a flu jab etc with no problems.  When it comes to extended digging or cutting I tend to go all white, feel faint and express the need to have a chunder.  It has happened a few times before when it took five or six attempts to find a vein for a blood test one time and also when they had to poke/dig around a bit when a PICC line was being put in.  It also happened this time.  I came within a nanosecond of chundering.  I broke out into sweat – my shirt ended up covered in sweat.  It was bad.  Fortunately the nurse decided that was enough and gave up.  The nurse then took a tiny sample from the end of my finger much like a diabetic does to check their blood sugar levels.  This was mostly OK although I was still a bit iffy and felt a bit funny.  It did not help that no blood would come out and it took three goes before they also gave up on this.  It could be worse, I could be a Hawthorn supporter hey Kingy