Wednesday the 22nd and it’s the day of my MRI scan (pelvis) and CT scan (chest and abdomen) for the surgery team to look at.
They are digging the main road up in Cotgrave and there are temporary traffic lights so I am delayed but I am not worried because I have got plenty of time.
Out on the ring road and there is the usual thirty miles and hour vehicle in the outside lane. I cut inside it at the roundabout but they indicate left and carve me up. Then as I am following them around the roundabout there is a left signal followed by a right signal and again they drive straight across my bows. Where did they get their driving licence? By collecting tokens off cornflakes packets? At the park and ride I get parked up fairly easily. There is a van cruisng round with DVLC and automatic number plate recognition cameras all over the roof. They stop and clamp a car – a nice surprise for the owner when they return.
I make my way to gateway C – the imaging suite and fill in a questionnaire regarding whether I have any metal anywhere. I have not. The receptionist is having a sneaky cuppa – I tell her that I hope that I am not interrupting her lunch. She says I am not but I know that her cuppa is a sneaky one because she has got it hidden around a doorway and keeps looking down the main hall like a meerkat.
Into the imaging suite and I am given another questionnaire to fill in and then it’s into the sexy gown and a jug of foul tasting juice to drink. I have just got my juice when I am summoned to the MRI scanner – juggling my basket of clothes, my jug of juice and the cup. The radiologist takes my basket of clothes and locks them away and then I am poured a cup of juice and asked if I could drink it quickly before my scan. And then another. And then another. Fine if it had been Tetley’s bitter.
The MRI scan takes about forty five minutes. It doesn’t really worry me except that I have a frozen shoulder and my hands are above my head which is absolute agony but I get through it. The music that the scanner plays would never make the charts – it is like listening to Eminem on a good day!
Finally I am able to sit up and adjust my sexy gown and then it’s off to the waiting room for the CT scan.
The place is unusually quiet – only one inmate – but I have to wait for a lady to come out before I can go in. The radiologist looks at my socks – they are red and grey hoped stripes – Eleanor calls then Fimble socks - and she is dieing to say something – I can see it on her face – but she thinks better of it. Perhaps she has been in trouble before. I decide not to say anything – to be truthful I am feeling a bit tired and shell shocked from the MRI scan.
The CT scanner is a beautiful machine compared to the MRI. The other radiographer explains in graphic detail what she is going to do as I lay on the table and then tries to find a vein to inject the imaging dye. I tell her that my veins are always difficult and she says that she doesn’t “do” difficult veins. The needle is in and she injects saline to make sure it is in the right place and is accepting fluid.
Then they withdraw and the scanner tells you when to breathe normally and when to hold your breath and the radiographer tells you when they inject the dye. The first time I had it it made me feel like I had wet myself but this time it just makes me feel warm.
Three passes of the machine and it is all over except……….
They need to check the images and the radiographer comes back in and tells me to hooch over as they haven’t got everything they want. So it’s back in the machine – hold my breath and they make one more pass. Job done.
The radiographer then escorts me to the lockers to get my basket of clothes, I don’t know my locker number – there is no number on the key and the other radiographer locked my clothes up. I try the key in the locker I think is mine and the door opens. “These’ll do” I tell her and she walks off with a smile.
I go into the cafeteria and Darling is on the plasma screen TV with his budget. I will refrain from comment. Finally I get on the Medilink bus and back to the car park. There are some more cars clamped – it looks like the DVLA have had a good day and the journey home is fairly easy without the thirty MPH Sunday drivers in the outside lane.
There is an elderly gentleman in the hospital campus with pipe cleaner legs poking out of “It ain’t half hot mum” shorts, wearing an Australian bush hat and carrying a butterfly net. I ask him what he is looking for. “Insects” he replies and walks off at a rapid pace. Obviously not in need of communication with his fellow man.
So now I am back in the waiting game. The radiographer explains that a consultant will look at the scans and then they will be forwarded to the surgeons and then I will be summoned for another consultation. Crunch time approaches.
The porridge that I had in the morning at 7.00pm has certainly done it’s job and I have had several near misses where the tortoises head has nearly made a premature performance but luckily I made it with seconds to spare.
I can’t believe that I am approaching one hundred pages of this drivel in fact I have now passed one hundred pages.
Last night and Eric has lead me astray again and then I receive a message that my brother is coming up from Herne bay on Friday. Oh dear!
FormerMember
Nonsense Drew, I think I 've read most of them & I've thoroughly enjoyed them. I start to panic if I don't get a chance to look at your blogs during the day.
The juice for my CT scans seem to taste of Ouzo. With the amount you have to drink, how I manage not to properly wet myself whilst scanning I will never know.
