Brutalized by PA and successful 10th anniversary party

I went to the BMT clinic at 9:30 AM yesterday for a day of testing as the end of maintenance cycle nine approaches. The visit began with taking my vitals, then insertion of a line in my port and then withdrawal of about 12 vials of blood. By this time my appointment for a PET/CT scan had nearly arrived so I went up to Radiology on the third floor. I was soon summoned by an escort who took me down to the first floor where they had moved the equipment since my last scan. While I was waiting to be given the sucrose solution charged with a radioactive tracer, two young techs (recruiters ?) came in to ask me to participate in a research study aimed at determing why so many children are overweight or obese. They said that PET scans can discern brown adipose tissue,which seems to have some relationship to obesity, but they can not run PET scans on children so they want older patients undergoing PET/CT scans who will allow them to collect enough blood to determine the amount of glucose, insulin, cholesterol and fat hormones. I agreed to participate, but the amount of blood they took from me amounted to more than the 12 or so vials collected earlier.



The PET/CT scan proceeded as scheduled and when it was over I went to the 6th floor Bistro for a late lunch (I had not had breakfast because I was not allowed to eat for 6 hours prior to the scan). My bone marrow biopsy was scheduled for 3:00 PM so I went directly from the Bistro to the BMT clinic hoping that I could get in early, but no such luck. I was not taken in to the room for the biopsy until 3:00 and then I found that Andrea was the designated PA. I have had her collect the sample at least twice before and she is very rough about it. She probably weighs no more than 100 pounds and she twists and turns the needles to get the 2 samples and yesterday I heard her tell the asssistant that she was going to have to make a second hole. It took 30 minutes for the procedure and after bandaging the site she left me lying on a bag of ice and said the nurse would be in to check the bandage for any blood and I should stay there until Debbie came in. After 25 minutes I went into the infusion room and found Debbie to be the only one on duty. She looked at the bandage and gave me telephone numbers to call in case I felt any sharp pain or had a fever above 101, neither of which have I had. But I have had a lot of low level pain ever since and cannot lie on my back and it is painful to sit in the pickup truck, which I had taken to the clinic so that Emma could use the Lexus. I am still in pain from Andrea's treatment.



The 10th anniversary of our Golden Wedding Anniversary party Monday evening seemed to be a huge success; everybody said they had enjoyed it very much and raved about the food. We counted up the guest list and with Emma and me we found that 55 were here for the party. Most were local but 2 of our daughters with one husband came from out of town, one of my high school friends came from Gunnison, Utah, and 2 others came who are local. One friend came from Elko and one from Bethesda, MD. I was asked if we would be doing a 20th anniversary and I said that, God willing, somebody else would have to organize it.