Donna in Hollywoodland

Morning - Radiology

Quote:
"I can't die. It would ruin my reputation"
Jack LaLanne - the fitness guru, who was born in 1914, and who is still going strong. I saw the quote in a magazine, and I just had to write it down.
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I took a vacation day because I am volunteering at the American Cinematheque Awards tonight.
And for some reason, I let the doctors convince me to come in this morning, to do some things. They basically needed to take the Xrays and a CT scan, to see where to aim the Radiation beams for my Breast Cancer Therapy.
And they promised I would be out of there by noon.

Basically, they took some Xrays. Wrote all over my chest with magic marker.
Then they placed to little tattoo dots on me. One between my breasts, and the other at the end of my left breast. There is a board I will be laying on, and they needed all the measurements and diagrams for that.

Then, because I am rather - ummm - large chested , they made these two little styrofoam looking blue blocks. These will be placed underneath my breast during the radiation treatments, to lift it up. They said that way there will be less
radiation burns in the fold of my skin.

Then I has to run over to the hospital to get a CT scan.
I told the technician "I need to be out of here by noon."
She said, "Oh don't worry - once we get you into the radiology department, they will be as Quick as a Bunny getting you out."

I had about a half hour to wait before the CT scan. I sat in the courtyard and treated myself to a Iced mocha drink.
Then I went over to the Radiology Dept. The TV show "ER" was on the waiting room television.
Not a good show to be watching at this time, I tried to ignore it. Not that you could really see it. The TV was broken, and there was a huge fuzzy line running through the screen. I pulled out my cell phone and started to play the games.

When they called me in, the technicians from radiology came over. They glued little plastic-looking lines to the magic marker lines that were on my skin.
Thank heavens this CT scan contained no drugs or toxic liquids or isotopes. I've had enough of those nasty things for a lifetime. They basically just needed a CT scan to get a view of where my major organs were, so when they give the radiation treatments to my breast they can hopefully stay away from all the important parts in my body and just hit the breast.

I got claustrophobic going through the CT scanner. Which is kind of silly, because its just a big donut.
You go through, and you come right out the other side. There is no tunnel to it like an MRI. But there are whirring noises and things spinning around on the machine. So it frightened me a bit. And I acted like a big baby.
Whenever things would whir or spin, I'd whine "Oh, no - whats happening now?"
And then the table moves by itself, feeding you through the donut.
I was just glad when it was over.

The doctors and technicians were very interested in whatever diagrams and planning they were doing with the results.
They told me to just go ahead and change back into my clothes.
When I went to the changing room, I saw all the little plastic markers where still glued to me. And some of them were under my armpit - towards the back. So I couldn't reach it.
I had to go back out to the doctors and technicians. Their heads were all buried in the paperwork and computer readings.
"Ummm, exuse me - Can someone help me get these little plastic things off my skin?"

One woman technician helped peel them off.
And then I was out of there.