{"id":1539,"date":"2011-07-29T21:05:30","date_gmt":"2011-07-29T21:05:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ackc.org\/?p=1539"},"modified":"2012-01-27T19:05:00","modified_gmt":"2012-01-27T19:05:00","slug":"punch-biopsy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ackc.org\/jayedit\/punch-biopsy\/","title":{"rendered":"Ever Get a Punch Biopsy?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This article <\/a>is cross posted from The Kidney Cancer Chronicles.<\/p>\n

So we\u2019re all sitting around in the examining room at Johns Hopkins feeling a little bored. It was the same old routine \u2013 gouge my forearm with a needle, draw out several vials of blood, run it through the labs, get a physical examination and then head on up to the Infusion Center for the IV drip of MDX-1106. Blah blah blah. Sure, we\u2019d had the melanoma scare and got to slice off parts of my neck and ribcage. We\u2019d had the liver enzyme scare. That was fun and all, but that was then. What about now?<\/p>\n

\u201cThis clinical trial sucks,\u201d said one of the nurses.<\/p>\n

\u201cBORing,\u201d said another.<\/p>\n

We sat around tossing hypodermic needles at the back of the door until it occurred to me: \u201cHey,\u201d I said, \u201cthat rash on my shins has gotten a little weird.\u201d This perked up the room and everybody gathered around as I pulled up my jeans over my calves. The nurses peered at the rash where it had become more inflamed and welted, some appearing to kind of scab up.<\/p>\n

\u201cAwesome,\u201d whistled the first nurse. \u00a0\u201cThat\u2019s just hideous,\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, we gotta cut into that,\u201d said the second.<\/p>\n

And we were on, baby \u2013 finally, something new and interesting to do. I was put into a gown and the nurses scrambled to find some good cutting tools.<\/p>\n

At least, that\u2019s how I think<\/em> it went down. I can\u2019t remember for sure because I think everyone here knows that I pass out or cry like a baby around needles and knives. So it\u2019s all a little bit of a blur. What I can recall with certainty is that Alice and Michelle, two of my nurses, were concerned enough about the rash that they wanted to get a biopsy. So we did. Right then and there. Think of it as a medical impulse buy. Alice called in another doctor who performed a \u201cpunch biopsy.\u201d During the previous biopsies to check a couple of moles for melanoma, the doctor came in with a scalpel and shaved off the moles, kind of like slicing a bite out of a cantaloupe. A punch biopsy, however, is performed with a funky little razor that looks like pen with a wide grip. The wide grip allows for twisting action, and that narrows into a cylindrical neck that ends with a round, hollowed piece of metal that turns out to be a razor.<\/p>\n

\"\"The doctor stuck me with a needle to inject some topical anesthesia, which felt like a little hornet had stung me. The initial prick wasn\u2019t pleasant, but the burning of the anesthesia is what you really feel. After a moment, the doctor took her James Bondy razor pen, \u201cpunched\u201d it into my calf and began twisting it clockwise. This allowed her to extract a small chunk of flesh, which she popped into a small vial of fluid. She let me look at it (because I am like a little kid and always want to see this stuff, provided it doesn\u2019t make me puke or faint). The flesh was whitish and red and looked like a toy replica of shark chum. I wanted to hook it to the end of some fishing line and toss it off the dock.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear what they\u2019ll do with my chunk of flesh. They\u2019ll send it to a pathologist who will examine it, but I\u2019m not sure what we\u2019re looking for. I think this is more for scientific\/medical curiosity than any concern that it may be threatening.<\/p>\n

I think I\u2019m going to get me one of those razors, though. Drop by my office and I\u2019ll perform a punch biopsy on you. It\u2019s kind of cool.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The doctor stuck me with a needle to inject some topical anesthesia, which felt like a little hornet had stung me. The initial prick wasn\u2019t pleasant, but the burning of the anesthesia is what you really feel. After a moment, the doctor took her James Bondy razor pen, \u201cpunched\u201d it into my calf and began twisting it clockwise. This allowed her to extract a small chunk of flesh, which she popped into a small vial of fluid. She let me look at it (because I am like a little kid and always want to see this stuff, provided it doesn\u2019t make me puke or faint). The flesh was whitish and red and looked like a toy replica of shark chum. I wanted to hook it to the end of some fishing line and toss it off the dock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[48,9,46,47,12],"class_list":["post-1539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-cancer-therapies","tag-kidney-cancer","tag-mdx-1106","tag-mdx1106","tag-rcc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ackc.org\/jayedit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ackc.org\/jayedit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ackc.org\/jayedit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ackc.org\/jayedit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ackc.org\/jayedit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1539"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.ackc.org\/jayedit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1778,"href":"https:\/\/www.ackc.org\/jayedit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1539\/revisions\/1778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ackc.org\/jayedit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ackc.org\/jayedit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ackc.org\/jayedit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}