The Liver Biopsy

So, here we are with the details of the Liver Biopsy procedure. This is done under local anaesthetic and very light sedation, I’m not sure what drug they used but I was told that “its ok if you sleep” (unfortunately for me, it seemed to have no effect at all) the doctor performing the biopsy gave me some local anaesthetic just under my right ribs, he showed me the tool they use and explained that it would make a loud click noise when they use it. Thankfully his English was ok so I was able to understand!

The insertion of the tool didn’t hurt, just a little pressure but no pain. I was then put through the scanner to make sure it was in the right place, I could see on the screen where the long object went into my abdomen, it was actually pretty cool at this point, there was no pain and it was very interesting to see what they were doing on the scan image.

Sadly this was where the cool stuff ended. I’m honestly not sure what happened next, I just remember blinding pain, some tugging and more pain. I screamed, again.. (Seems to be a theme of the week, right?) Nurses came running, put up more IVs, increased the flow on the drip, everyone seemed quite confused as to why I was in so much pain. They held me down for a minute while they finished taking samples and then took the tool out of my stomach, gave me a plaster and told me to put pressure on the site.

Still loudly crying and writhing in pain they wheeled me back out into the waiting area to wait for the porters to come get me. My boyfriend was there waiting for me thankfully and he took over keeping the pressure on my belly. I was in so much pain though they decided not to wait for the porters, one of the staff called up to Oncology and when we arrived the nurses were there waiting with IV pain killers, they had the syringe connected to my IV before I was back in my room, to which I was very grateful for!

Later that afternoon I was moved on to oral morphine and paracetamol to control the pain, it worked ok, but I was woken up in the night quite often. This is when I learned my first french medical word, “douleur” (pain).

Because my pain was so unusual just from a biopsy, I had another CT scan the next day to make sure there was no bleeding or damage to my liver itself. This came back clear so why it hurt so much is a mystery, it’s not normal apparently.

It took about two weeks for the pain to subside enough for me to come off the Morphine pills. I was in hospital for 5 days simply to get the pain under control before they were happy for me to go home. I eventually went home with a massive prescription for Morphine, Paracetamol, Xanax and other drugs to help me get through the next couple of weeks.