CouchCoach
Staff member
- Messages
- 41,122
- Reaction score
- 74,959
Alright, you passed the second test and gave me a present. But Oh yeah at the end???? I am reading your posts from back to front from now on!Afternoon Pops and everyone.
These trips to Iowa City make for a long day. Hurry hurry to get to the first test in time to get checked in, and wait in the waiting room for them to call me back to start my iv for the contrast infusion. Drank two 16.9 oz bottles of water ((the specific amount is important as you’ll see) one on the way, one while I was waiting. They call me to go back for the first of my needle sticks, have me change into scrubs and out of my jeans because there’s metal on the jeans, and send me back to the waiting room. More waiting. Then a nurse calls my name for what I think is my walk back to the CT room. No. Another ten ounces of water? WTH. She said they have to make sure my bladder is full for the scan so they can get a good picture. I told her how much I’d already drank, but it didn’t matter, and she was too young to understand what having babies and going through the surgery I’d had does to your ability to “hold it”. Another 10 minutes later and somebody else calls my name, this time to actually go back to the CT room. At this point I had to tell this nice gal to walk slower because I’ve got over 40 oz of water sloshing around inside me and I’m about to lose it all on the way. This is a different gal than the one that gave me the 10oz cup of water. They get me set up on the table and do the first scan to kind of calibrate everything to my person and she then comes out to start the contrast. Laughing, she says “you weren’t kidding when you said your bladder was full! We’ll get this done quickly so you can get to the restroom.” It’s a good thing I have a good sense of humor and also good for their janitorial staff that I’ve been working on getting my core strength back! Uneventful after that... walk to the lab for more needle sticks, more waiting, then to see the doc for results of the scan.
Oh yeah... labs and scan were all good so I bought another year. Just thought I’d throw a bit of how these days out there go for me. Those of you who’ve had to deal with this either directly or accompanied someone who has, have probably heard similar stories. Yup. Long day indeed.
Talk about accompanying someone on a nightmarish journey. One of the side effects my poor wife had was fluid retained in the abdominal area and we made 3 trips for the paracentesis, the procedure for draining the fluid. The first time 1.7L, the second 7L and on the third I stood there holding her hand as they took 10L and after 6, the nurse started looking over at me and I knew this was not normal. The next day they called and sent us to a kidney specialist who asked us why they hadn't started us on albumin therapy after the first episode.
Do there people even comprehend what a question like that does to people? I called our oncologist for a one on one and this started a huge mess within the hospital and a feud between Texas Oncology and Baylor with us in the middle and me trying to keep this from my wife.
There is the disease that strikes, there's the treatment and then there's all that crap that goes on around you while you feel helpless. I cannot count the times I silently asked myself "are we doing the right thing"? I think I shared with y'all that I was a card carrying pessimist and had to retrain myself and watch everything I said and how I said it. Then, I had these damned doctor wars that would erupt about once a month.
Jan, great news, I think I'll have a cocktail and cigar to celebrate. Make than an extra one, already had that on my agenda. I have a CC's Holidays Festivity agenda all lined out.
