Friday and its scan day. I get up after a coffee and shower. Again its the pre hospital ritual of being clean and smelling nice. It also means thinking about what to wear as its a scan, so no zips, no belts, no jewellery and no jumpers. It also means having clothes with enough pockets to juggle all the bits and pieces that the trip will require. Given the weather coupled with the no jumper rule I plump for a vest and T shirt so that I can wear my new multi pocketed knuckle cord jacket. So having got the hospital kit on I check that I have everything I need. I say good bye to my youngest daughter who is returning home today. Farewells said I then get myself on the road to the hospital.
I arrive early and find a parking place with no problem at all, which is unexpected. What was also unexpected was a stranger offering me her parking ticket that still had tome left on it, but unfortunately not long enough for me to use, so I politely decline. I get my parking ticket and then enter the hospital with my mask on. I wonder towards radiology and find myself thinking that there are not many people around. I find radiology and get directions to waiting area B. There are two other couples and a singleton in the little bay and I think I am in for a long wait. I get out Betrayed By Rita Heyworth and start to read. To my surprise the people around me disappear, reappear and bugger off in very quick time. I’ve only got through a couple of pages before the radiographer calls me in. Nice guy, so I give him my pre completed risk form to save him flogging through same form. He explains the injection of a contrast liquid into me and asks me if I have a favoured arm. Left, its always the left, I have a very accommodating vein in the left arm and sure enough he whips in the catheter first go. I lay down on the scanner and the radiographer arranged my limbs and leaves the room. Fairly soon a mechanical voice is asking me to take a breath and hold it. After a couple of the breath holding interludes I feel the contrast fluid being pumped into my arm and right on cue I experience the flushing sensation through my limbs and the rather disconcerting sensation of wanting to pee and poo at the same time. It is one of those moments that you hope everything holds together, but of course it does and all goes well. The radiographer returns and ushers me in to a small waiting area and then goes to check the magic machine has worked, so I am left to contemplate the catheter in my arm adn of course cannot resist a quick selfie.
The radiographer returns (a good book title), and takes my catheter out and askes if I am okay. Of course I am. I leave the building and fancy a bacon roll adn a coffee so I drop into the hospital restaurant. Coffee machine not working and not a sniff of bacon anywhere. I leave unfulfilled and return to the car to drive home. I get home to find there is much cleaning and organising going on, which precludes coffee and a bacon bagel. I got out again to the shop for a paper and drop into the village café to have a coffee and a bacon and sausage baguette. Refreshed I return home.
Once home I head for the Shed where I reorganise and integrate many Christmas goodies. I settle down and write letters, probably the last of this year. By the time I finish writing it is dark so I pack up the Shed and go indoors. I take a quick trip to the post box and then settle down to watch some TV. Before long its time for tea and the easing into the evening. My household has been busy completing yet another Christmas jigsaw. The success is marred by a missing piece.
As luck would have it the wayward piece gets found later under the jigsaw board. As TV wallpapers the background I start to draft the blog and think about what I am going to do tomorrow with the last day of this year. I am frustrated that I cannot train and have not trained this week and part of me wants to train tomorrow just to get my body going. If I wake up feeling half human tomorrow I might give it a try.
