Wednesday 24 May 2017



View from the bra: the CT scan


My first scan was a CT scan in the Belfast City Hospital Cancer Centre on 27 April.  By now, I was under the care of the NHS.

I knew when I walked into the Centre that I would be in safe hands.  It was a warm, welcoming and tranquil place and it even had a coffee shop with lots of lovely cakes and buns.  Yes!  Anywhere that has a half decent coffee shop is alright by me.


Preparation


To prepare for the scan, I had to go without breakfast (does cancer know what hell it's putting me through?) and my usual 10 cups of tea.  The nurse gave me a special type of contrast mixture to drink every 10 minutes for one hour.  It didn't taste too bad actually, although I think it would have benefited from a splash of gin.  She also stuck a needle into me so that the radiographer could inject some dye.


A wee chat



It turned out that the radiographer was English and had moved to Northern Ireland.  We talked about holidays on the Isle of Wight, how we both had fallen in love with a local, and how Northern Ireland was a real hidden gem (it IS, by the way).  He warned me that when the dye was injected I would go very warm and get a metallic taste in my mouth.  He also said that I would feel like I had wet myself.  Nah, surely not.


Oops


The process was quite a lonely experience as I was in the room on my own with the radiographer sitting in a sealed room, controlling the scanner.  But then he came back in to inject the dye and disappeared back behind his window again.  And guess what, he was right!  I felt this really weird sensation down below and it was so weird that I shouted out 'F*ck me!'.  Oops.  I apologised afterwards but he laughed and said he never heard a thing.  Yeah, right.  I know he was just being polite as everyone who knows me knows I have a voice like a foghorn. 


So there you go, that's my CT experience.  After it was over, I did what a girl had to do: I went and stuffed my face at Benny's Bistro.


Next time...


I'll blog about the joys of the bone scan.  



PS:

If you've enjoyed this blog, please feel free to follow me on Twitter: @luvvacurry

Please also consider donating money to my step-daughter, Fiona Dougan, who is running a half marathon in September 2017 to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support.








3 comments:

  1. By Marie T (Twitter) - Your natural humour shines out of your writing. Keep it real. Much love my friend xx

    ReplyDelete
  2. Having had two CTs, I can totally relate, except they didn't tell me the first time and it was a bit of a surprise when I got a cheap thrill! 😁

    ReplyDelete

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