Beaks, teeth and biopsies

This has been quite the medical week for the whole Morrell family. Everyone has gotten a taste of the inside of a different medical related facility this week than they are used to. On Monday Lisa went to the ER, and on Wednesday Niko went to the vet, and I went to the dentist. All places that we haven't been in a long time for ourselves.

We used to call taking Niko to the vet a "Parrot adjustment" because he'd generally be all super nice and sweet for a week or two afterwards. Kind of the "I'll be good! Just don't take me back there!" type thing. This vet, however, seems to do a stellar job in handling him and working with him so while he doesn't like being swaddled in a large heavy green towel and having his beak and nails ground down, he doesn't freak out as much as he's done at other vet offices. Plus everyone there seems to love him. The receptionist always wants to hold him when we come in, and the vet and the vet's aide were all excited to see Niko back again. Overall a lot of attention... and that is something Niko craves more than pomegranate.

After Niko had been man-handled it was my turn and I got to darken the door of a dentist office for the first time in three years. Last time I made the journey to the dental offices was to have my wisdom teeth removed. (Aside: a great part about keeping a blog for the past nine years is that you can reference things that happened YEARS ago and relive them at the drop of a hat.) This dentist was probably the nicest one I have ever had the pleasure to work with. It's kind of funny most dentists I have been to advertise pretty heavily that they are a dental office. This place is in a little strip mall with a faded "dentist" painted on the door. Really sketchy looking with no "cute" name making a pun about crowns, teeth, etc. Despite the scary exterior everyone inside was really nice and great.

My perfect "no cavities" record was broken though. Despite the lack of spending lots of time at the dentist in my life I have been cavity free, until now. I'll have to get that remedied in the next few weeks (I'll pencil it in between chemos...) but in all honesty I'll blame it on the chemo. I think my record would have been perfect if it wasn't for that pesky chemo and those obnoxious side effects.

And now the fun part. Biopsies! (Like the previous two) This morning we got up nice and early, did the morning commute to the hospital thing, and was sitting in the surgery prep area by 9:00am. (After blood draws and chest xrays) Then the surgeon came in and greeted Lisa and I and cheerily told us how he was going to put a hole in my chest a little below my heart, go through the rib cage, through my lung and get a sample of the tumor in/around/near my heart. Ok. Fine. And you're going to be awake. What!? Let's not forget that my first biopsy I was awake for the "large needle in the abdomen" experience, and I was also awake for the first time they put in a groshong, which also involved my upper area of the body. Thanks, but I feel like I have had my fill of medical procedures that require cutting or deep poking while being awake thank you.

After instantly getting crazy nervous when they told me they weren't going to be putting me under (which was contrary to information they had given me last week) they decided to give me some medicine to see if I calmed down. I didn't. Forty minutes later I decided that I really wasn't going to be ok with this and asked about rescheduling so that I could be asleep for the procedure. They kind of rolled their eyes and said something about it could possibly be late next week, if not the week after that before they could get me in again. (Translation: big baby doesn't want to be awake when he has a massive needle shoved into his chest.) They checked their schedule though and discovered (Thank you Lord!) that there had been a cancelation for Friday (tomorrow) at the same time.

Thus, tomorrow I will be going in for a biopsy, and this time I am SURE they will be putting me under for it. And I won't have to put off chemo any more than we already have as well. Thank you for your prayers, same concerns tomorrow as there were today: no collapsed lung!  And a note to my readers about medical procedures: if it seems like something you would want to be unconscious for, make sure you spell it out and even if they give you the, "Oh it's not that bad", ask them if they have had it done to themselves, and then tell them that you DON'T want to remember the size of the needle in your nightmares for the rest of your life.


~B.
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