Sheila Greene

"Sheila Greene" is the pseudonym of a young New York woman who recently learned she has Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Her Live Journal includes an extremely funny and well-written account of her diagnosis and the treatment she's beginning now. She's rightfully optimistic; as she cheerfully explains, "Hodgkin's is the cancer to have, if in fact you must have cancer."

Here's a sample:

"So, we can do the bone marrow biopsy now if you agree." To which I said, "...Now? Really? ...Now? And, um, you said I *have* to have one, right?" It didn't take me long to decide that if the test was really necessary, I'd rather do it now than later -- I certainly wouldn't profit from having several days to worry about it. Surprise biopsies are the best kind of biopsies. But Mom and I were planning to meet Boyfriend Dan after the appointment (which was plainly going to last a little longer than I'd expected), and I wasn't sure how mobile I would be after undergoing the BMB, so I asked about this. "Oh, you can go out dancing tonight," Dr. H assured me. "Will it be painful?" I asked, and he said, "We numb the skin, and then we numb the bone." That wasn't exactly a "no."

...They extract the sample from your hipbone, because there's less flesh and more bone there (from what I understand). The "numbing" shot stung quite a bit (there was no pre-numbing numbing), but it worked; the next shot (into the bone?) wasn't painful, and I could only feel pressure when Dr. H punctured me with his big biopsy needle. This says a lot for the power of the numbing stuff he had injected into my butt only moments earlier, because I've seen pictures of the biopsy needle. I will spare you the link, but think of a meat thermometer and you won't be too far off. Still, I don't think anybody could really enjoy the experience of having a hole drilled into his or her hipbone, no matter how technically painless the experience might be. And even though I couldn't see what Dr. H was doing, I could feel him rocking the needle back and forth as it burrowed into my hipbone, and, whew, I am getting a little woozy just writing about it now.

Then he said, "Okay, now I am going to suck out the sample marrow, and I can't do anything about this pain." How reassuring! Now, I am here to tell you that the pain was not nearly as terrible as I'd been primed to expect. Maybe a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10. And it didn't last that long. But by this point I was so freaked out and anxious, and so sure that it would be excruciating, that I nearly fainted...

Then everybody left me to recover, and Mom came in, and although she was probably alarmed to see me hooked up to an IV and an oxygen tank, I think it was probably less traumatic than if she'd been present for the actual procedure. (I read another blog by a BMB survivor who said that the biggest mistake you can make during the biopsy process is watching the facial expressions of any loved ones who might be watching.)

ALSO: Here's an account by my Stutts classmate Glenn Fleishman of his own victory over lymphoma.