Many apologies for the long absence - and for the returning blog being about football and traffic, Trouty - you’ll not be too pleased to learn that there’s more where that came from! Today, after due (and, I have to say, hesitant) deliberation I am bringing you more news of my progress through the long and winding corridors of the NHS. I should also apologise for the length of the piece; I had initially decided to split it into two or even three separate chunks, but then changed my mind
As part of my continued healthcare, I was invited to have a CAT scan at Salisbury District Hospital (my second home for various parts of 2010). The notification had been sent to me several weeks earlier and informed me that I needed to present myself one hour before the appointed time so I could be given a contrast drink to improve the pictures produced by the scan. I was familiar with this as I had had one last year. It involves sitting around for up to an hour, sipping a milky substance, being bored out of your skull and trying to concentrate on your book, invariably with little success!
I duly turned up just after 10 a.m., reported to reception and sat in the waiting room. I was so bored, I became enthralled by an episode of Property Ladder. Yes, that bored. At 10.45, the receptionist smiled and said “You were a bit early, weren’t you?” I explained that my letter had instructed me to arrive an hour early for the drink. “Oh,” she replied and strode off purposefully, returning a few minutes later saying that my letter had been sent just before they stopped requiring patients to have the drink! Oh well, the up side of this was that I went to the treatment area fifteen minutes early!
The CT scan experts among you will know that the initial step is to insert a canular into a convenient vein in order that a dye can be injected during the scan. If you are at all familiar with my veins, you will be only too aware that ‘convenient’ is not a description readily applicable to them: they are either extremely shy or just plain bloody rude, because they just don’t turn up to these parties and no amount of violent skin-slapping encourages an appearance. The nurse gave up after one attempt and took me in to the scan room, saying she had called for a doctor to do the dirty work.
The six subsequent failures to effect an incursion (three in each arm) showed - statistically at least – that the nurse was significantly less crap at this than the doc. Anyway, the end result was that the whole shebang had to be rescheduled and I left the hospital self-consciously sporting seven bits of transparent sticky plaster and more cotton wool balls than three teddy bears.
The new appointment was fixed for a week ahead but, in between times, I had a phone call to say that the scanner had broken down and could I turn up two days later than originally planned? So I did and, after three attempts, one was in vein. Ha! See what I did there? After all this hoohah, I saw the oncologist last week who told me that the scan had revealed a small (2cm) growth in my right lung which is almost certainly a cancer but almost certainly removable.
Now I’ve got to have a PET scan tomorrow at Southampton which will give the medics pictures in glorious Technicolor and 3D to indicate whether the little bugger is the result of a spread or completely new and help them decide the best way to deal with it. This time, I’ve got to be injected with a radioactive liquid; wish me luck with the veins. I wonder if I’ll glow in the dark?
So, CAT scan, PET scan, presumably a LAB test is next.
As part of my continued healthcare, I was invited to have a CAT scan at Salisbury District Hospital (my second home for various parts of 2010). The notification had been sent to me several weeks earlier and informed me that I needed to present myself one hour before the appointed time so I could be given a contrast drink to improve the pictures produced by the scan. I was familiar with this as I had had one last year. It involves sitting around for up to an hour, sipping a milky substance, being bored out of your skull and trying to concentrate on your book, invariably with little success!
I duly turned up just after 10 a.m., reported to reception and sat in the waiting room. I was so bored, I became enthralled by an episode of Property Ladder. Yes, that bored. At 10.45, the receptionist smiled and said “You were a bit early, weren’t you?” I explained that my letter had instructed me to arrive an hour early for the drink. “Oh,” she replied and strode off purposefully, returning a few minutes later saying that my letter had been sent just before they stopped requiring patients to have the drink! Oh well, the up side of this was that I went to the treatment area fifteen minutes early!
The CT scan experts among you will know that the initial step is to insert a canular into a convenient vein in order that a dye can be injected during the scan. If you are at all familiar with my veins, you will be only too aware that ‘convenient’ is not a description readily applicable to them: they are either extremely shy or just plain bloody rude, because they just don’t turn up to these parties and no amount of violent skin-slapping encourages an appearance. The nurse gave up after one attempt and took me in to the scan room, saying she had called for a doctor to do the dirty work.
The six subsequent failures to effect an incursion (three in each arm) showed - statistically at least – that the nurse was significantly less crap at this than the doc. Anyway, the end result was that the whole shebang had to be rescheduled and I left the hospital self-consciously sporting seven bits of transparent sticky plaster and more cotton wool balls than three teddy bears.
The new appointment was fixed for a week ahead but, in between times, I had a phone call to say that the scanner had broken down and could I turn up two days later than originally planned? So I did and, after three attempts, one was in vein. Ha! See what I did there? After all this hoohah, I saw the oncologist last week who told me that the scan had revealed a small (2cm) growth in my right lung which is almost certainly a cancer but almost certainly removable.
Now I’ve got to have a PET scan tomorrow at Southampton which will give the medics pictures in glorious Technicolor and 3D to indicate whether the little bugger is the result of a spread or completely new and help them decide the best way to deal with it. This time, I’ve got to be injected with a radioactive liquid; wish me luck with the veins. I wonder if I’ll glow in the dark?
So, CAT scan, PET scan, presumably a LAB test is next.
