[mausmish]

Conscious sedation sounds great. However, in case your insurance doesn't cover it, I wanted to let you know my experience with local anaesthetic. I've had a total of four bone marrow biopsies since January. In all cases, they used lidocaine to numb me locally (a shot in the behind) and I had only minor discomfort that passed very quickly without any aftereffects. My first time, like you, I was very frightened that it would be painful and traumatic. Even the second time, I was almost equally scared, thinking the first experience had been a fluke but I was okay again. Third and fourth, I was a lot less anxious. My first was done by a doctor but the others by a nurse practitioner. Hopefully, all will go well with you regardless of the type of anaesthesia.