The Continuing Saga
January 29, 2008
For those of you reading my installments about the self-destruction of my innards, read on.
Today was my (rescheduled) CT scan. For those of you who have not had a CT scan, it’s a pretty interesting process.
First you drink these barium “milkshakes” that have aspects that make every part of your sensory system scream. Viscous. Chalky. Stringy. Heavy. Ringing taste of pale metallics and chemicals. Nominally “berry” flavored. Every bit disgusting. I had to drink three.
Except. By the end of the second one this morning, I was requiring trips to the (indelicate bits ahead!) lavatory every 5 minutes or so. It was miserable. The CT techs had neglected to warn me that it might make me sick in this way. Boy howdy. But they did assure me, when I called 1/2 an hour before my appointment, that I’d be able to be near a bathroom at the clinic. Woo!
The actual procedure is interesting and curious. You strip, put on scrubs, drink the last of your dastardly barium, and then lay down on this horizontal plane that can be maneuvered through this big beige doughnut. GE makes this big beige doughnut, there are icons and pictograms all over it (a bit Stargate) and I bet it cost a whole LOT.
Then they gave me an IV (thankfully in the elbow this time instead of the hand, which HURTS), and the second nurse told me that as she hooked me up to the iodine machine, I’d feel two sensations: 1) That something warm was running down the back of my throat, and 2) I was peeing myself. I’ll be damned–she was telling the truth.
After that there was just a lot of whirring and PA system telling me to hold my breath. And radiation.
Just got the doctor’s voicemail that all they found was the expected smallish lump on my appendix. Things move forward, then, as expected. I’ll be setting things up with a surgeon tomorrow! Whee!
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If you’re interested, you should see if the radiologist will give you a copy of your scans on CD. I got mine one time and it’s really cool. The CD came with the viewer application. You can slide up and down your body and see the slices that the CT captured… made all the more interesting because it’s your body that you’re looking at and not some random medical photograph.
Damn, they never told me I could see the pictures. Of course this is an ongoing issue I have with the medical community, they always make you (or rather me, as Preston seemed to have more informative people), pull teeth to find out anything. Anyway, I wonder if it’s because it’s your intestines that you had to have the “milkshake” My many CT’s were all with the “cool-aid” style drink. Still gross, I assure you. Oh, and when they put the IV in me, I swear I could hear water running, but no peeing issues. Or puking, and I know how you hate that. The only thing I was ever told of my x-rays and ct’s was, “we have to re-take some, we think we see something” or, “they all looked fine” oh, and one time I got, “you have long lungs, we have to shoot them twice” Long lungs?