Scan the man

In the cosmic lottery that is my ongoing cancer treatment, I drew the two worst nurses when I went in for my CT scan the other day.  The main one who was 'helping' me was a morbidly obese woman, who I am sure gets winded when she peels a banana, that is if she eats fruit at all, who has no idea what using 'your indoor voice' means.  She kept talking loudly to me even though she was inches away from my ears.  And as if that wasn't bad enough, she could not find a vein to put an IV in me.  So she stuck me and blundered around until I finally started showing more than obvious signs of discomfort.  Finally she relented and went to get another nurse to stick me and what she came back with was a male nurse who looked like he'd just gotten out of his court ordered Sex Offenders Anonymous meeting.  I'm pretty sure he'd been in a break room some where resting his hands in a bucket of ice water because he had the coldest hands I've ever had the displeasure to feel.  He stuck me in two different places on my hand but sadly could not find a vein, so he went to get the third nurse who came in and said, "I'm going to try to find a vein."  I quoted Yoda when I said, "Do or do not, there is no try."  She found one on the first try.  I turned to Sparky and said, "The force is strong in this one."

After they got the IV in me they took me in for the scan which went better than that IV placement.  It showed that I had no cancer in my chest or lungs which is good, but before you get all excited and wet your undies, there's still cancer in me somewhere and my oncologist thinks he found out where it's coming from by looking at some of my blood work, so he's ordered an MRI.

But before the MRI, came my PET scan which  had earlier today.  And as luck would have it I drew another morbidly obese nurse, one who seemed to think I was supposed to be deferential and worshipful to any one in scrubs I saw.  Of course I put her to rights as soon as I could when I showed her that I wasn't about to be either of the things she wanted.

The prep for the PET scan involved me getting stuck again so they could inject dye into my veins.  I told the big ol' nurse where to stick me and she got it right the first time, oh joy of joys.  Next I had to dink a vile vanilla flavored concoction that she said was to provide contrast inside my body, so I drank about two thirds of it and when she left the room I poured the rest down the sink, that shit was nasty.  Then an hour later after the dye and contrast had it's chance to work in me they took me in for the actual scan, which involved me laying on a narrow table and getting slid back and forth in a large tube that took photos of my chest, abdomen, and groin.

When it was done they asked if I wanted a snack and pointed to a bowl full of processed foods that I don't eat and didn't even eat when I wasn't watching my diet.  I turned them down and they seemed hurt but I could care less.  I asked if I was done, they said yes, and I collected Sparky and got the hell out of there as fast as I could, I wanted to come home and eat something decent and to be out of that building that's full of disease and sickness.