Directing Traffic

With transfusion, my platelets came up near 60,000. Made me a candidate for lumbar puncture. Oh boy! So, I'm laying on my side facing the wall and the drape is in place on my spine and the one with the needle is fishing between the vertebra to find the draw. "Did you find it yet?" I ask. "No, not yet." I wait a while and make an executive decision. "Pull it out. Get somebody else." I hear a voice in the room from a person I've not seen face-to-face repeating my words "pull it out." And, I hear the people changing places and rubber gloves being pulled on and finally a person sits down who starts feeling the mountain bumps of my spine and repositioning my knees to the chest body tuck and after a few moments of thumb pressure exploration the needle pops in and finds the spot no problem. We have the drip. Wait, wait for the test tubes to fill. Pop the chemo tube on the needle site and begin the slow injection. Me facing the wall, directing traffic. With this episode, I believe I graduated to professional patient. Plain and simple. Advocate supreme. This has absolutely nothing to do with being a control freak and everyone to do with managing care. One small victory in a huge and continuing challenge.