Muscle Biopsy

Early yesterday morning (for me anyway), I had the Muscle Biopsy at Scripps Mercy Out Patient Surgery. (I also had the ‘repeat’ blood work my rheumy wanted.)

It was a major stress, as are all of these types of events, for me. Fasting, getting up early, wondering if the scheduled transportation is going to show up when they are scheduled, getting out of the apartment without letting the cats out, spending too much money on coffee, food while I’m waiting to come home, being in a non-smoking environment for hours, coming home alone, etc. All of this just wears me out, emotionally.

The procedure itself was a piece of cake, thanks to that wonderful drug, Versid. I came home with a huge pressure bandage on my upper right thigh, some mild pain in that leg, a page of ‘instructions’, and extreme relief that it was ‘over’.

I did ask the doc if I could see the ‘tissue’ that they had removed from me. (I always like to know these things, do not know why, though I have actually written a couple of poems on this theme.) He showed me a little plastic jar with what looked exactly like a tiny chuck of red, raw steak floating around in a clear liquid.

Today I am feeling ‘wiped out’ in every sense of the phrase. I am sore, my leg hurts (indeed, wound was oozing so much I had to change the dressing and call the doc), my mind is unfocused, I feel generally rotten, I am eating way to much, and not much is very important except getting through the day.

I will not get any results from this test for three weeks. It will probably take me that long to get over the stress, and the partial ‘flare’ the stress caused, of going through all of this, and it could all be for naught. Sigh...