Biopsy My sweetie and I get to the hospital by 9:15 for the 9:30 appointment, and sign in.  Eventually they take both of us back, get me into a gown, and take my vitals.  They verify that I know my name, my age, and why I’m there.  This has all been arranged by Dr. B in a rush, and they’re fitting us into the schedule.  We wait.

My sweetie will leave when I go for the procedure, as he can’t be with me then anyhow and he has a bunch of errands to run.  The nurse comes to draw blood.  My poor vein has been subjected to a lot of activity over the last several days and doesn’t want to let her in.  She finds another nurse who’s very good at that, and she is able to do the insertion without any trouble.

More time passes before the surgeon (Dr. F) arrives, apologizing for the delay.  I wave a kiss to my sweetie, and they wheel me into the room. You know the drill now as well as I do:  breathe in, breathe out, don’t breathe; breathe normally.  Dr. F says it’s important to do it the same way each time, so they know what the rhythm will be.  They will take a specimen and the pathologist will tell them if it’s adequate; if not, they’ll have to go back.  It’s a needle probe, so the wound is very small.

They get their specimen; it’s sufficient.  I’m rolled back onto the stretcher and taken upstairs.  My sweetie returns after about forty minutes, just before one o’clock.  I’ve had juice and cookies by then, and he brings me one of those nutritional supplement drinks, and I have that.  I still have my book.  I am there, they tell me, for four hours.

After two and a half hours my butt is sore from the hard stretcher.  My book is mercifully engrossing, but I’ve been doing a lot of reading and I’m bored.  They’re checking my vital signs every fifteen minutes at first, then every half hour.  No chance I could be moved to a chair; “bed rest” is required.  One of the volunteers recognizes my book and we have a chat about the series and some other books we’ve both read.  That helps.

At three o’clock one of the doctors comes along, has a look at me and checks me out.  Then a nurse, examining the incision (that other nurses and the doctors have been checking regularly) decides that it’s swollen and I can’t leave yet.  Fortunately, someone intervenes.

I accompany the locker mistress down the hall to get my clothing.  My wristband appears quite clearly to be marked “M2″, but that locker contains someone else’s clothing.  (I knew it was wrong because it was on the wrong side of the corridor, but “M2″ it was.)  More waiting while they checked;  “N2″.  And there were my things, and I changed, and we walked out of the unit and the hospital, and went home.

Tuesday I will talk to Dr. B.  I still have told nobody except my parents and a single friend.   At the evening phone call, my mother says she “said something” to my sister’s husband, leaving it up to him whether or not to tell my sister.  I have to talk to my brother in the morning.