New Toys

Today was scan day. In other words, the morning comprised about five minutes of interesting stuff surrounded by hours of sitting around reading articles in Time wondering if Ted Cruz would be able to stop Donald Trump (spoiler alert: no, he won't) or in which one famous person extols the virtues of their friend, some other famous person, who Time has somehow deemed to be "one of the 100 most important people in the world." Sadly, the magazine did not also include an article explaining how and when "important" became a synonym for "famous." 

Anyway, back to the scanning...

I never quite got the whole story, but the sitting problem was exacerbated by the fact that the SCCA has a new CT scanner. Very snazzy, but somewhere in there either the new scanner temporarily broke down, or the old one did permanently, but somehow they had to get two schedule's worth of people scanned with only a single scanner available. 

Thus, the "go sit and drink this contrast agent over the next hour" turned into "go kill an hour and a half and then spend an hour drinking the contrast agent." Big fun. 

I have to say, though, the new scanner was awfully snazzy, once I got to ride in it. It even comes with a computer monitor over the hole that tells you your name, medical record number, gender and age. Not that I don't know all that information, but it's to be able to confirm that they know who they're scanning. Having been victim of identity mix-ups in medical settings on more than one occasion, I'll take all the confirmations I can get. 

I should note, however, that I was apparently not the first person to mention that putting your age up on the big TV monitor seemed a little unnecessary. I suppose it could be worse; could be your weight.

Aside from the monitor, the new scanner also had this weird etching inside the hole. I'd say it was there to entertain you as you move through the machine, but I can't imagine. It's actually fairly hard to see so you've got to focus pretty hard on it, which means you're not focusing on the instructions to breathe, hold your breath, etc., that the machine's giving you while the scan runs. But whatever.

Oh, and a word to the wise: if you have to get a scan, try to avoid sneezing when you're coming out of the scanner. Freaks. Them. Out. From the reaction of the tech in the room, and then the nurses in the observation area, you would've thought I'd been shot. They were convinced I was having some sort of reaction to the contrast agent, and terrible things were going to soon starting happening.

Nope. Just a sneeze (well, ultimately four sneezes). 

It's sort of funny what gets a reaction and what doesn't. I get the feeling that you could be gushing blood and they'd be like, ah, whatever, it's just a flesh wound, but sneeze and they all but bring in a crash cart. Odd.

And now we wait for two days to see what stepping off the chemo path has done to me. It could just be the new found energy, but I'm personally hoping for the miracle cure.*


* As I've mentioned previously, irrational hope is hard to kill.