After my prostate biopsy, lets just say I wasn’t excited about them poking my liver with several large needles. The other option we had was to go for some in the lungs, but I’m told the liver is one of the most resilient organs in the body, so that was the first choice. I mentioned my concern of the trauma from the last biopsy to my oncologist, who absolutely did not reassure me “oh yeah they are gonna wanna be down to business and won’t care how you feel”. Slightly freaked out, he prescribed me two pretty pretty intense drugs I recognized for anxiety and pain.
The liver biopsy was somewhere between major surgery and outpatient procedure. I guess due to the risk of a major accident, they check you into a short stay hospital room to make you wait afterwards and ensure there’s no issues. Luckily you could have a guest and my wonderful wife accompanied me for the day.
I decided against taking either of the drugs prescribed - I don’t need any addictions or withdrawal, so I decided to trust whoever was doing it that I’d be ok.
Luckily that morning I had just started a book on meditation - while I wasn’t even halfway through the book, even the early guidance helped me maintain a calm while being wheeled through the hospital to the procedure room (my nurse even commented about my perfect blood pressure).
Now that serene was a little interrupted when the biopsy doctors gave me an overview: “So we’re gonna numb you by sticking some needles deeper and deeper, then stick a large needle in, then remove that needle and suck up some cells. Now the liver is very filled with blood so in the event you start to bleed out, the first thing we’ll do is inject a clotting foam in you, and if that still doesn’t work and you’re still bleeding…” at this point I stopped paying attention, man I don’t need to know how the sausage is made, just stop the bleeding if it happens!
You are fully awake and get no anesthesia, so you get to hear the doctors prepping you. They then do a bunch of ultrasounds and say really comforting things like “hmm i don’t like the position of that” and “oh geez, that one looks really close to his bowel are you sure?”, “Think you can get around that fat?”. After poking and prodding me for twenty minutes (they said “hey sorry we’re window shopping!”) and they started the procedure.
In the end, I’m glad I didn’t take the drugs, like most procedures people make a big deal out of, I found this was really a nothingburger (or possibly the doctors were awesome). They inject you with lydocane deeper and deeper, then eventually shove a big needle in you guided by ultrasound. They were very good about explaining what I might feel each time, and every time what I felt was way less than what they say I might feel.
For whatever reason my lesions were hard to get to (I take this as a good sign, would rather not have a giant tumor that’s easy to access!), so I had a lot of “breath in just slightly, now hold it…” type exercises. In the end I think they ended up stabbing me around 8-9 times, making sure they got enough samples that I didn’t have to do it again.
In the end none of the worst case scenarios happened and i have a tiny bandaid that looks like its covering a few mosquito bites. It felt a little like I’d be punched in the chest and I learned a lot about where my liver is located… The nurse kept trying to tell me “you won’t get the results today, but soon!” as I imagine most people getting this test are getting a binary (it is cancer or not), in my case we know it’s cancer we’re just trying to figure out the flavor. Its estimated to take 3-4 weeks for molecular testing, so now we wait…
Biologist Michael Levin (Distinguished Professor at Tufts University and director of the Allen Discovery Center) views cancer not merely as a genetic defect, but as a communication breakdown in the bioelectrical networks that coordinate multi-cellular life. He's done some interesting research.