Today turned out to be a busy day. Because I was diagnosed with a bleeding disorder last year, my hematologist called me yesterday to make sure that I went into his office for medication before my needle biopsy today. So we got up and hit the road at 10:15 for our 11am appt. They told me to get there early because they were very busy .. but the place was empty when we showed up. We were done before 11, and they couldn’t start my medication until noon, so we ended up having to kill time. Then when I went back to get the medication, they took their time and soon they were worried I wasn’t going to make it to my 1pm appt. I did, no problem there, but the nurses were good about hurrying up. Then we took a short trip over to the outpatient part of the hospital. The actual procedure was interesting, they used an ultrasound machine on my neck, you could see the jugular and other arteries pulsing up on the screen. After the two techs scanned around for a bit, the Dr. came in and found the node he wanted to use. Apparently I had many to choose from, all ‘enlarged’ but they weren’t super big so none were very easy. Once they found the spot though, things moved pretty fast. They covered me with sterile dressing, then injected me with lidocaine, which burned so bad, but I knew that would be the worst part. Then the Dr. proceeded to stick me with a needle, or several needles about 6 times. He would hold the ultrasound machine with his right hand and would guide the needle under all my precious neck parts with his left hand to reach the node (he also said he was right handed). Sean said he was amazed, apparently the Dr. actually bent the needles before sticking them in my neck and didnt really look at my neck itself, but used the crazy looking ultrasound where we could barely see the needle pushing through my layers to get to the node. It was pretty neat. They think they did a good job collecting cells and even made a couple extra passes to make sure they did a good job. So hopefully we wont need to do this again. Afterwards I held an ice pack to my neck for a bit and made a stop at Wendy’s on our way home. I WAS STARVING!! 

I’ve been resting / napping since we got back, my neck feels okay, a bit like I have a stiff neck or pulled muscle .. basically it doesnt feel very good to pull my head toward my right shoulder. I pretty sure this is going to be an easy recovery. All I have on my neck so far is a small bandaid

What’s up? Sorry I haven’t really posted much lately, really nothing much has been going on. Tomorrow I’m scheduled for my needle biopsy, which sounds like a pretty easy process. I just hope that it gives us some answers, whatever they may be. I don’t have a followup visit scheduled, so I have no idea when the results will come back. I guess I’ll try to do that tomorrow after the procedure. Anyways .. Oh, how am I feeling? I’m doing alright, to be honest there are times I dont feel sick at all and I wonder why we’re doing this test, but usually a few hours afterwards I’ll notice an aching pain under my arm or in my elbow. The lumps in my throat seem harder to find, though I might be getting used to them. And the tiredness comes and goes too, today I’m exhausted, yesterday I was fine. Yesterday I had blood drawn for tests for Friday and I had the worse techs ever who stuck me 5 times with 3 different types of needles .. I ended up with major bruises .. [here's a pic] if you’re curious  

Here are some other random pics that I found on my iphone, they’re mostly from June and July. 

Here is a super long wiener dog

Twins snuggin’

A postcard from the PostSecret exhibit

Big Boy playing with the big dogs (the one black one laid down to play with him)

Ttwo exhausted dogs in the car.

Here’s my hair for Keri’s skate .. I also sported the double pony tail in the back I should really go take a picture of the nice burn on my forehead from the curling iron .. haha.