He had Sou lie on his stomach. He started feeling around Sou's lower back, just above the hip. Then he took his pen and pressed it onto Sou's skin to make an indentation. Next, he cleaned the area with some iodine swabs and laid a sterile drape over the area. Then he began numbing the area with lidocaine.
"It's gonna burn a little" Dr. Liu said. Then began moaning softly. It looked like he was using a 25G needle. Then he said that he would go deeper to numb the tissue even further. This time around, the needle looked like a 20G. And deeper he went, and Sou's moans became slightly louder. Then I was thinking, "Gee, I could handle this, this ain't so bad." I've witnessed a couple procedures at work and they usually moaned. Before the syringe of lidocaine was empty, the doc began poking at the bone saying, "Can you feel that??"
"HUh??? huh???" Sou was confused.
"Good." the doc said. Then Dr. Liu made a tiny incision with a scapel that went down to the bone so it would be easier for the "bigger needle" to go in. He reached for this long, metal, probe-looking thing that had a plastic grip on the end. Apparently the doc referred to this as the "bigger needle". He inserted it into the incision until it was resting on the surface of Sou's hip bone.
"Okay, you're gonna feel some pressure." Dr. Liu said. Then he began doing a cork screwing motion. This is where the louder moans began. Sou also began tapping the back of his hand against the bed signaling me to hold his hand. After a few seconds, Dr. Liu removed piece from the center of the "big needle" and reached for a syringe. He placed it on the top of needle and said once again, "Okay, you're gonna feel some more pressure." Right when he aspirated the bone marrow Sou began yelling, very loudly. That part was over after a few more seconds. The whole time Dr. Liu was calm and more interested in the specimen he obtained than the yelling a moaning by Sou. I thought I was about to faint.
"I'm gonna go get some water." I said.
"NOOO Stay here!" Sou said. In my head, I was like, DAMMIT. This was a little more intense than the regular suturing that went on at First Care.
After putting the bone marrow in a couple of lab tubes, Dr. Liu positioned the big needle in the incision onto the surface of the bone.
"Okay, this is gonna hurt a little bit more. We're going to get a piece of bone." Right when he said that I thought about just walking out the door. But there I stood. I didnt' need to watch, but I couldn't help myself. He began doing the same cork-screwing motion just with more effort this time. Sou's loud yelling turned into screaming. The whole time the doc remained calm and continued to go deeper into his hip bone. After what seemed to be an hour of screams (probably 10 secs), Dr. Liu removed the whole thing.
"Are we done yet?" asked Sou.
"We'll see." He removed the piece of bone that looks a little bit shorter than a toothpick.
"You wanna see what we got? I'll show you." he said to Sou.
"NO" he pouted. Yes it looked very painful. I don't think I wanna watch one of those again. Maybe on YouTube. Not anything live. For the next few days, Sou would continue to talk about this procedure, claiming he is traumatized. I would be.
Nothing went on during that day once the procedure was over. I think they drew a couple more tubes of blood. Elsie and Edna stopped by to visit Sou. He enjoyed that. They were his first visitors. It seemed to have elevate his mood quite a bit. Basically we would wait til the next day for the results of the bone marrow which would be sent out to a lab in Seattle.
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