Ka Chunk!!!

Did you hear that? Last Thursday, I got my ticket punched for four more months at M.D. Anderson!

These trips are always stressful, and I was my usual apprehensive self on the trip. Since we started visiting doctors at noon, Cheryl and I drove over to Houston early in the morning. We dodged the insanity of Austin traffic (Austin is full, by the way - go away!) and made it to Houston around 10am. We checked into our motel, stopped at a local Barnes a& Noble to get more current reading material in case we had to wait a bunch, then headed over to the hospital.

We measure the cancer threat by how high up in the parking garage we end up driving as we hunt down a parking spot. Our best results seem to be when we land on level 5, and that was where we landed. I had to check in for my CT scan around 12:30, and we got there about an hour early. Thankfully, they called me in pretty quickly, and I was escorted into the IV prep area by a nice nurse.

Since my last test did not go so well, due to a bad IV, I asked her how good she was. The nurse told me her small group usually do about 160 "sticks" a day, but they are moving towards a goal of 250 per day! Yikes, that is one every 2 minutes for an entire 8 hour shift

Even though she said she was good, it still took her two tries to get the IV in! I hate that part. It is bad enough to sit through the sting of the IV in the back of your hand, but twice is pretty evil. I have had to sit through four tries, I fired that nurse after she failed three times!

Normally, I get to sit with the IV back in the waiting area, but this time, I wend straight back into the "Krispy Cream" area where eight CT scan donut machines live. After changing into a suitable blue hospital top, I was guided to the machine after only about five minutes of sitting in a waiting area.

I was hooked up to the "contrast" tube that pumps something into the IV to make any cancer cells show up better, than I laid down with my head in a cradle and my arms tight by my side. The view on the ceiling was looking up to the sky through some dogwood trees. I commented on that, since I am from Virginia, and the CT tech told me she went to school near Williamsburg, Virginia. Shoot, we both come from the same place!

Then she left the room, and I was told that the contrast would start. Last time, my arm exploded when they did this, since the IV was not really in a big vein. I had to make them stop! This time, it still hurt, so the IV was not perfect, but I managed to get through that short pain period.

As the contrast flows into your body, you get warm from the inside out. It is a weird sensation. I feel it the most near my stomach (and lower), I suppose because a lot of blood vessels wander through there as blood flows toward your legs.

Then she told me not to swallow and the donut ride began.

The CT machine has a spinning ring that circles you shooting those CT particles (whatever they are) shoot through you to sensors on the opposite side of the ring. The result is a full image of every inch if your body through and through. Some cool software and they can explore your innards as they like.

Anyway, the ride was pretty short, then the tech came back in, pulled the IV, and aimed me back down the hall to change back into my real clothes, and I was done. Pretty quick.

I went back into the waiting area and found Cheryl exploring Mount Vesuvius on her iPad (why, I discovered had something to do with her Bible readings while I was going through the test, bless her!)

I walked up to the chair she was sitting in and peered over her shoulder. She did not notice me, but everyone else in the area did. As they started laughing, she looked up to see why, and discovered me back far sooner than expected!