Hickman & Marrow

Hickman & Marrow.  No, not a gardener's seed merchant, but a couple more medical procedures enjoyed today.  I won't go into too much gory detail, but if you're squeamish about hospitals or ops (only minor ones), probably best not to read beyond this first paragraph.  Unsurprisingly I find the medical stuff quite interesting because it's happening to Little Old Me, but I do appreciate that it's not quite the same reading about someone else's surgical experiences.  Less on the medical front after today with luck, because I don't have any more hospital appointments between now and admission on Feb 12th, barring a couple of quick visits to check the Hickman Line (see below).  And I know I still owe you the story of the marrow spoons.  Coming soon, I promise.

The Hickman Line is an intravenous catheter which is used when the docs need longer-term intravenous access.  They can put drugs in or take blood out without having to keep inserting needles.  It's a few inches of tubing inserted into a vein in the chest, just below the collar bone.  I'll spare you the picture here, but if you're interested you can Google 'Hickman line' and see what it looks like on someone else.  So a dose of sedative and some local anaesthetic, and ten minutes later I had my very own Hickman Line, including a couple of stitches to hold it in place.  It'll stay there until I'm out of hospital and on the mend, unless some joker pulls it out by mistake or I catch it in the mangle (ouch).

And while they had me on the table and under sedation, they took a needleful of bone marrow and a small sliver of bone as well, both from the back of the hip bone.  I've had this done before several times, though not sedated, because analysis of these bone and marrow samples is the best way to measure the progress of the CLL.  More accurate than blood tests.  So today's samples will serve as the baseline for my pre-transplant condition.  Again, if you're interested, there's a good diagram of the procedure here: http://www.healthline.com/adamimage?contentId=1-003658&id=1129

Personally I prefer this picture of a marrow: