three peepz and a cow

The day of my CT scan, I dealt with three people.

First, I had to have blood drawn.  The man called me in to the Blood Draw Room and had me sit in a comfy blue chair.  He wasn't just drawing blood - he was putting in a Huber needle so that during my CT scan, it would be ready for them to inject the contrast dye. There was some confusion over the paperwork: he needed a report from when the port was put in that would indicate where in my jugular vein the tip of the catheter was placed.  The ID card and paperwork I had with me didn't say anything about that.  So he made some calls, I made some calls, he made more calls, and finally the report was faxed and I could get my Huber.  And I almost forgot to mention - this guy complimented me on my shoes.  Love that!

Second, I had to have the CT scan.  In preparation, I had to drink Barium.  Now you might remember from earlier posts, I have had to drink Barium before.  It was chalky and gluey and made me gag.  But now, there is a new liquid Barium (new to me anyway) that comes in a little vial.  You pour it into a bottle of Crystal Light and aside from a slight aftertaste, it is really easy to drink.  I had two of them and I was ready to be scanned.  The technologist brought be in to the CT scan room and had me lie down.

Third, a nurse in the CT scan room hooked me up to the contrast.  I had two images taken before the contrast, then the nurse came back in and actually injected it, then I had two more images taken.  And that was it.


And do you want to hear the weird part?  The CT contrast nurse was named Jeff, the CT technologist was named Kim, and the blood draw guy was named Paul.  So for my first day of stuff happening at Dana-Farber, I dealt with Jeff, Kim, and Paul!  This made me happy :)

The other thing that made me happy was this inexplicably hand-printed cow.

I go back to D-F on Tuesday the 14th to meet with Dr C and Nurse C (Nurse C is the Research Nurse in charge of the trial I am going to be part of) and we will go over all my questions and get all the papers signed. And if everything goes to plan, I should start chemo the Tuesday after.

I'll let you know...