A Miraculous Medical Breakthrough

I show up at the hospital yesterday at 10:30 for the whole body bone scan.

I just love saying that. Whole body bone scan. Sounds ominous doesn't it? Mysterious.

The bone scan guy tells me he will be injecting a radioactive isotope into my arm. It takes 2 to 3 hours to circulate in the blood and get absorbed in the bone.

So I will have 3 hours to kill before the scan. However I can leave the hospital, do whatever I want.  He told me I can eat, drink - doesn't matter. Nothing interacts with the isotope and nothing affects the bone scan.

So of course I asked if I can drink booze before I come back because I am very nervous. I am not good inside machines.

He said absolutely. If I want a couple of drinks, have a couple of drinks. Just don't show up drunk.

Holy shit. Are you kidding me? This is the guidance I have been looking for ever since I morphed into an old person who spends more time in hospitals than I do in bed.

They micro manage everything when you are having a procedure. You get so paranoid that you think "Holy shit - I ate 2 Cheez-Its 7 and 1/2 hours before surgery. Am I going to die?"

And of course - no alcohol. 

I leave the hospital at 11:00 after the injection and go home for a 2 hour bliss break. Poured myself a whiskey immediately because I was already wound up. Just before I left the house at 1:30 I poured another whiskey, a rather stiff one. Not stupid stiff though.

When I laid down on that bone scan machine I was relaxed.

Turns out I was overreacting. A bone scan machine is nothing like an MRI. You are not imprisoned inside anything. There is a mechanism above and below you that peeks inside your body. It moves. It is only about 3 feet wide. 

They start with your head. The machine is lowered to within 2 inches of your face. The head scan takes 3 to 4 minutes. Then the machine moves down your body. When it moves you are wide open; nothing above you, nothing to the sides.

So when I saw that machine coming down I closed my eyes and kept them closed. Deep breathing, forcing myself to keep them closed. I kept pushing for one more minute, one more minute. I knew if I opened my eyes and that goddamn thing was right in my face I would panic.

Finally I asked the guy if it was off my face. He said "Open your eyes." It was already down by my hips.

Hallelujah!!!! By the way, it is a very quiet machine. So the bone scan thing was a piece of cake.

Some learning for you: The bone scan will only tell you if there is cancer in your bones. They do this because if prostate cancer spreads it typically spreads to the bones. So if I have pancreatic cancer I am still fucked.

What are you gonna do?

He told me typically three days for results. So it's possible I will get a call on Christmas Eve saying "Mr. Testa, your bones are riddled with cancer. You have 7 days to live. Merry Christmas!"

I don't expect that to happen, of course. I have dodged a lot of bullets in my life. But a "procedure" like this does put thoughts like that in your head.

So I have a new attitude. Bold and fearless. In the future when I am meeting with the experts preparing for a procedure, and there will be many more of them, I'm gonna flat out ask "How about a couple of drinks before we get this thing started? You know, for relaxation."

What have I got to lose?

By the way, me and the bone scan guy got along pretty well.