Needles

I have never been afraid of needles. I didn't like getting shots as a child, but it was the pain not the needle. By this point in my life, I have had a handful of piercings, another handful of tattoos, and had my blood drawn about 100 times. It never bothers me. Neither does the site of blood. Today, I am going to tell you about my first medical procedure in the out patient hospital. It has to do with giant needles.

On May 4, 2016 (yes, Star Wars Day) I went to Clovis Community Hospital with my best friend CB. She was kind of enough to take the day off school and work to stay with me in the hospital, as boring as it probably was. I was there to get a biopsy of my right kidney, which is the normal sized one. This was to make sure my Kidney Disease was not caused by something like a blood issue, lupus, etc.

The National Kidney Foundation describes a kidney biopsy as the following:

A kidney biopsy involves taking one or more tiny pieces (samples) of your kidney to look at with special microscopes. The microscopes make it possible to see the samples in greater detail.

The biopsy sample may be taken in one of two ways:

1. Percutaneous (through the skin) biopsy: a needle placed through the skin that lies over the kidney and guided to the right place in the kidney, usually with the help of ultrasound.
2. Open biopsy: the kidney sample is taken directly from the kidney during surgery.
   The kidney sample is then sent to a doctor (pathologist) who looks at it with microscopes. He or she will check for any signs of disease.

My biopsy was done percutaneously. They checked me, got me dressed, and eventually wheeled me into an operating room that also had an MRI or body scanning machine. I was immediately put to sleep, thank goodness. I get really anxious in hospitals, so the faster they put me to sleep the better. 

Next thing I knew, I woke up in an odd position in my original prep area staring at CB. She was laughing at me a little. Apparently, I had been making some odd faces and maybe talking in my sleep. All in all my first procedure wasn't bad at all. I did not even have to look at the equipment they used and I did not feel a thing.

The next day was the bad part. I felt like someone had hit me with their car in right lower plank area, but I made it through a whole day at work. This medical procedure left a small dot on my back and some lines the medical team made with their purple markers, but I did not get a cool scar on this trip. 

A while later, maybe the next week, my doctor gave me the results. The biopsy proved that my right kidney was not function correctly and has been damaged for some time due to high blood pressure. We both believe that my right kidney has over compensated since birth or since I was quite young. Maybe this caused the high blood pressure or the high blood pressure caused the problem, we will never know. But at least I don't have a blood disorder or an autoimmune disease.

(Picture collage on homepage is from the biopsy)