It’s Scan day.

Ezekiel connected dem dry bones

Ezekiel connected dem dry bones

Ezekiel connected dem dry bones

Now hear the word of the Scan Man

Well, your toe bone connected to your foot bone

Your foot bone connected to your heel bone

Your heel bone connected to your ankle bone

Your ankle bone connected to your leg bone

Your leg bone connected to your knee bone

Your knee bone connected to your thigh bone

Your thigh bone connected to your hip bone

Your hip bone connected to your back bone

Your back bone connected to your shoulder bone

Your shoulder bone connected to your neck bone

Your neck bone connected to your head bone

Now hear the word of the Scan Man

Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk around

Dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk around

Dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk around

Now hear the word of the Scan Man

Disconnect dem bones, dem dry bones

Disconnect dem bones, dem dry bones

Disconnect dem bones, dem dry bones

Now hear the word of the Scan Man

Well, your head bone connected from your neck bone,

Your neck bone connected from your shoulder bone,

Your shoulder bone connected from your back bone,

Your back bone connected from your hip bone,

Your hip bone connected from your thigh bone,

Your thigh bone connected from your knee bone,

Your knee bone connected from your leg bone,

Your leg bone connected from your ankle bone,

Your ankle bone connected from your heel bone

Your heel bone connected from your foot bone

Your foot bone connected from your toe bone,

Now hear the word of the Scan Man

Oh well,  dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones

Now hear the word of the Scan Man

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones

Now hear the word of the Scan Man.

Well I doubted that this would be sung to me as the cameras whirred around me as I lay dead ridged on a slab in the depths of the nuclear medicine department at Glenfield hospital. I was right, all very professional.

First there was breakfast to do and the usual tidy round and feeding of the fish. It was calculating how long it would take me to get to the hospital, in theory quick and easy, and then there is the parking. I left ridiculously early having got bored with filing my chemo claws into something like a reasonable appearance. This was a good decision. As anticipated the actual “getting there” was easy and quick but I ended up on the back of a queue playing “joust for the space”. We circled like sharks sensitised to every reverse light flicker or rattle of car keys coming out of a pocket. Then out of the blue I got a break, a pair of full on reversing lights right next to me, instantly I backed up giving the driver behind a shock as he had to hurriedly back off himself. Out the little white car came and in I slide my shark finned sleek dark blue carriage. Yes this is my day. It was until I realised it was a pay and display car park and al I had was two pound coins which would only buy an hours parking. One thing the nhs could do is install parking facilities with contactless facilities. They are all the bloody same, living in the dark ages and taking the piss as none of them give change either. So I went off to find the change machine in the main reception area, where I find my only note is a £20. So I limp back to the parking ticket machine and get one that will cover me for long enough.

I find my way to the nuclear medicine department and check in.  While I wait I fill in a form about surgical history, pain and something I forget. I note the sign opposite me telling me that in essence once I am radioactive they do not want me hanging around in reception. Friendly.

I am collected by a smiley nurse who takes me into a room and checks who I am and then gives me the pre cannula chat. Then its hunt the vein time. My veins are looking good but the first one just will not play. Obliviously I am needle resistant. She tries the next one across and this time there is success. Saline to flush thorough to start with and then she gets a solid metal box in which lurks a metal cased hypodermic. This is screwed in to my cannula and the magic radioactive dye is pumped into with a bit of saline mixer.  Job done I am told to came back in two and one half hours to be scanned. So I wander off, disappointed that I am not glowing or acquiring any superpowers.

I meet my partner at the main reception café and we have lunch and chat about accreditation and award processes for different organisations until it’s time for her to return to work. I walk back to her work place car park and then return to the hospital. I get back to nuclear medicine and settle down in their waiting area and read “Early Riser”. I am fascinated from the very first paragraph and find myself happily reading oblivious of anything else.

As scan time approached I went for a pre-emptive piss, as this is always something scan people ask you to do. I got my timing just right as as soon as I returned to my book a chap came along and showed me to a changing room and presented me with a gown. I duly changed and sat in the changing room reading my book with just the gown, pants and socks on.

I got collected and shown into the scan room. There they checked I was me and then laid me out on the couch. I was left on my own while the technicians scuttled off to their room to drive the scan. I did what I always do when left alone horizontal on a slab, I dozed. No point in wasting the time if there is a chance for some sleep. In no time at all they were back saying they had finished and that I had to lay there and wait until the doctor was happy with the pictures so I was free to wriggle and move for a while, no chance I was back to dozing as soon as possible. Unfortunately the doctor was speedy in his/her assessment and did not need any more pictures so I was rudely roused and told I could go. I changed back into human clothes and wandered off.  

Outside the hospital there was a fruit and vegetable stall. It seems all hospitals now have these, it’s a strange phenomena and I think it’s done in the vain hope that people, fat and unhealthy people, will have a Damascus moment and experience a revelatory hunger to consume plants and their fruits. I indulged in strawberries, lychees and cherries to supplement my protein and fruit diet. So this particular vegetable and fruit stall spoke to the already converted.

Home and I start to write the blog. I am still not glowing in the dark and I detect no super powers developing. But I am looking forward to the start of the television adaptation of Good Omens tonight on BBC 2.