It February! Its a Thursday and it a bone scan day. These are the days of high arithmetic and spoon use. I wake and do my cyber litter checks, still nothing from the American book people, I think I’ve been taken for a ride. I book a Tesco slot and fill a basket and then do my vitals, (once again good). So I get up and cook breakfast and then search out a conference paper I read to send onto a friend who I saw on Linkedin selling her company.

Suddenly its almost noon and I need to be at the hospital for 1 o’clock. A speedy shower and a quick dress into clothes with no metal in them and I am almost ready to go. I remove all my jewellery, grab a book for my backpack and I am off.

The hospital has a good car park which is a blessing and runs a number plate recognition payment method. Thinking ahead I take a photo of the number plate and then march off to the Nuclear Medicine department where a receptionist handed me a COVID sifting form to fill in. I settled down in the waiting area to be called along side two blokes who where together, The guy for the scan was very anxious and on the spectrum, his friend was also somewhere on the spectrum. The friend tried to be helpful but only wound his friend up and forgot things, so there was quite a lot of chaos going on behaviourally and emotionally. I looked at them and wondered how they were ever going to mange to get the guy to be still enough to scan him, the levels of agitation were very high. I get called in to have my cannula put in and then the radioactive marker. It goes very smoothly and I am sent away to return at 3:30pm. Before I go I make the nurse aware that the guys who are waiting are likely to be tricky because of their anxiety and state, she thanked me for the heads up and noted wasn’t the first to mention it.

I drive home for lunch and time to do todays cross words. At 3 o’clock I am back on the road back to the hospital. As I enter the Nuclear Medicine department I see the nurse who acknowledges my return and tells me to empty my bladder, which I duly do. I am whisked into the scan room adn asked to lay on the scan bench. I was expecting a pillow under my head and one under my knees as usual, but it was not to be. Once flat I get a surprise, I am told to put my arms by my sides and then I get swaddled. Retaining flaps are velcro’d over me so that I am like the meat in a sausage! I opt for my only realistic option in this state, I breathe deeply and let myself drift off to sleep, a sort of guided nap. Some 40 minutes later I am released and told I can go, which I do. On the way out I see my original cannula nurse and I ask how they got on with the guy. She just said !It never happened” and left it at that. How on earth the referring doctor thought that the guy would ever be able to tolerate a scan I cannot fathom.

I get home and sloth into the evening rapidly running out of spoons and eat tea and start to draft the blog. I feel myself getting restless, a sure sign that I am sinking into fatigue. I sink over the evening failing to maintain interest in either of the two football matches on TV and sink to the Madame Blanc mysteries. Nothing for it but to get my night meds into me and go to bed to gather up some energy. Tomorrow is a treat out to see Sister Act.