Getting a CT Scan

I think I drank moonshine

I’d been seeing a urologist for about five years.  It’s the longest relationship I’ve had outside of marriage.  Suffice it to say he’s become quite acquainted with parts of my anatomy that up until now I had never been acquainted.  I mean who chooses that as a career?  All day long you look at assholes.  Ok, so does the kid workin’ the drive-up window at Starbucks.  However, after seeing my most recent medical bill I’m pretty sure the pain is worth it.

With that said, physicians and nurses try to educate you on what will happen during these events, but they are woefully deficient in their descriptions.  Also, they never tell you “why” you have to do some of these things. So, for the next several articles I’m going to explain my experience in great, and candid detail.  For those of you who read my blog, you likely won’t be surprised at said candor.  For the rest of you…good luck!

The CT Scan with Contrast

Dr. Google describes a CT scan with contrast as “…a noninvasive medical test. It is used to produce multiple images of the internal body organs to diagnose cancer, cardiovascular disease, trauma, musculoskeletal disorders, etc. Contrast agents, also called dyes, are used to highlight the organs, blood vessels, tissues, etc.”

What they fail to tell you is all the work you have to go through to get the test.  The first thing is you have to starve yourself.  If you get hangry like I do that’s not exactly the safest situation for for the bulk of society, especially the ones demanding money a.k.a. healthcare companies.  They then send you to a facility that does these procedures where they have you fill out documents that basically say “if you die, it’s not our fault, even if it is our fault, it’s not our fault so you need to sign these papers to hold us harmless if we mistakenly kill you, so we can look at what might be killing you.

For the benefit of these services, they then tell you that before they put your life at risk, you have to give them money.  This is kind of like bungy jumping.  It might kill you, then again it might not.  It also might just make you wet your pants.  Either way you’ll have a story to tell and some nice pictures when you’re done.  For the benefit of this process they will also ask you for anywhere from several hundred to several thousand dollars depending on if, or what type of health insurance you have. What type of health insurance you have depends on how broke you are, or how cheap your employer.

Once you’ve gone through all that they have you take off all your clothes, any metal, and put on some booties and a gown that’s open in the back so they can parade you through crowds of people waiting for their scans in their open robes.  It wouldn’t be so bad, but let’s face it, most of us having this procedure wouldn’t win any bikini contests, and quite a few spend too many hours training for the hot dog eating contest.  The people you’d prefer to see are young, healthy, and on a beach. This is something you can think about while you lie there half naked freezing your ass off.

Now, when they lie you down, they tell you ALL the things that can go wrong.  This is GREAT because it’s not like you’re nervous already after filling out the paperwork.  Anyway, a very sweet, kind, and FAR too young person helps you onto the table, taking great care not to notice the tattoo you got when you were 20 that has morphed into an unrecognizable blob.

Once on the table they insert an IV.  Now for me this was my first IV ever in my life!  I’ve broken 16 bones, had many illnesses, including pneumonia and to this point I’ve never needed any type of IV.  I managed to make it all this time with no more than an occasional tetanus shot, so the whole ordeal was a little disconcerting. Still, I likely would have done better if the little shit just kept her mouth shut.

Now what they tell you is that once they inject you with the die, it will feel like you wet your pants.  This likely may be true for women, who when they pee themselves everything runs out the back.  This is not true for men.  We pee ourselves down the front.  It’s an entirely foreign feeling.  The kids say you taste metal.  They’re not old enough to remember drinking water from old lead pipes.  Really…that’s the flavor.  It also feels like you took a shot of moonshine out of a rusty still and it burns down your throat all the way down to your toes.  Not a totally uncomfortable feeling, but certainly one that makes you think if you did this too often you might go blind.

It’s also a good thing you’re starving, because it is at that this point, had you just had lunch, it would be on the floor.  It’s not nausea per se, it’s more an odd uncomfortable feeling that lasts maybe a few seconds, but long enough that on a full stomach projectile vomiting might be the result.  Kind of like the reaction you might get seeing a group of elderly and middle-aged half naked people in cheap hospital pajamas waiting in a hallway.

After the scan they send you home, give you another bill, and tell you to wait three weeks for your doctor to call you.  Now, you own your medical records, and truth be told, they are legally obligated to provide you a copy, but that doesn’t keep the desk clerk from acting like you asked for the nuclear launch codes.  So, when their response is “you need permission from your doctor,” your response back should be “Then he can pay the fucking 500.00 dollars I just paid for the test.”  At least that was what I said anyway. It is at this point that you realize you really need a sandwich.  People will come filing out of offices to see the show.  Eventually however, an office manager who knows her ass from a hole in the ground then promises you a copy of the records, which by the way, you get three weeks after the physician.  Better late than never.

Now when you get this report, you don’t really read it, other than to find if you have cancer or not.  If you’re like me, that’s where you go.  You don’t read any other part of the report because that’s the only answer you need.  However, if you’re my wife, you read the entire thing and learn all KINDS of interesting things about your spouse.  Do yourself a favor, don’t Google ANYTHING.  Just ask your doctor about it.  However, I was amused at how many calcium deposits I had on my lungs, kidneys, and spleen.  Basically, all signs of previous injuries.  I told you I was active!

With me it turned out I had a three-quarter inch ball growing out of my prostate into my bladder.  This overly active prostate was affecting my ability to urinate.  More to the point, the more I had to pee, the less I was able, causing me great stress and annoyance.  Also given the fact that is was also causing me to pee blood, it was decided that another test was needed to determine exactly what that ball actually was.  Was it cancer (they still were not positive) or was it something less evil?  So, I had to have another appointment with a physician to have a cystoscopy.  A much more invasive from or torture which I will describe in the next edition of “I can finally pee like a teenager.”

Rex

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