Let me tell you about my most interesting bone marrow collection.
Here, the way they are done is a pathologist does the collection and the technologist assists them by setting up his tray, injecting the syringes full of aspirate into the correct tubes before they clot (some pathologists like to throw them at you; that is gross), and making smears, etc.
The patient was a sternal collection. It was also rock solid there and the pathologist had to climb on top of her and was all but drilling the needle into her chest. Even when it is soft, this is a horrible thing to witness when you are a patient and that is partially why we normally collect from the posterior. We also couldn’t get a trephine out at the end because the marrow itself was so soft, so we ended up tapping two more holes.
The first EDTA also partially clotted and we needed another aspirate which was so hard to pull, it clotted before they could even unload the syringe and we decided to make do with what we could because it would only get harder from there.
In the meanwhile, the patient had a reaction to the anesthesia and vomited.
