An Adventure in Scanning

I learned something today. Vanilla flavored Barium Sulfate contrast drink does NOT taste good even if there is a picture of a vanilla milkshake on the the label. Today, I had a CT scan and a bone scan. For the CT scan, they gave me two rather large bottles of a contrast drink and told me to start drinking one bottle two hours before the scan and the other an hour before. I dutifully started drinking the first at 6:30 this morning. After the first sip, I knew it was not going to go down easily. At 7:30 I had not gotten a fourth of it down. I went to the imagining place and they gave me some ice to pour the drink over and that didn't help much. I even had water to chase it down with and that only helped some. I managed to get 3/4 of the FIRST bottle down when they had pity on me and told me I had enough and they could go ahead with the CT scan.

I learned something else today also. (By the way, if you don't like hearing about needles and veins, you might want to skip this paragraph) My veins did not want to cooperate with the techs. I needed an IV to inject the solution for the Bone Scan and the CT scan. The Bone Scan tech got the first shot at my veins. He had to poke me twice to get the IV in. When he got the IV in, he left it there for the CT tech. Something happened between the injection of the Bone scan stuff and the injection of the CT scan stuff because when she started the solution for the CT scan, it started burning and she had to stop and redo the IV. She could not find a vein that wanted to do right. She poked me at least 4 times and then she had to call someone else in to help her. That lady had to try twice and the vein she got to work was in my hand and it really hurt when she was putting the needle in but she got it to work and we were able to finish the scan. Fortunately, that was all the poking they needed to do for the day. They did the best they could but my arm is fairly sore from them finding the veins.

The scans were painless and quick. The doctor ordered them as a precaution and I hope nothing shows up that needs to be addressed.


But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. (2 Corinthians 4:7-9)