You know me. I love tracking things, and this post is the 400th published post on this blog. Woo-hoo! 🎈🎉✨ Of course, I would have preferred to not have written any of them at all, but that’s life.

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I thought I had had a CT scan in the past, but if I did, I don’t remember it being anything like what I experienced today. It kicked my ass. Technically, it was the contrast they injected into me that kicked my ass. The scan—sliding in and out of the scanner—was a non-event.

The radiologist forewarned me of the sensations that I would experience shortly after he injected the contrast. The sensation of a full and warm bladder? Check. Metallic taste in my mouth? Check. A warm sensation throughout my body? Check.

What he didn’t do a very good job of was forewarning me of the intensity of the some of these things. At one point, I thought I was going to vomit like Vesuvius. It was awful. As soon as he stopped the IV flow of contrast, I could feel some of these side effects dissipating. (But not nearly as quickly as they came on.)

I didn’t even bother to ask the technician if they saw anything odd on the scan as they were running the test. I’ll usually do that because sometimes, if you’re lucky, the technician will help you out. They may not be able to be all that specific, but I’ve had one or two tell me, “You really don’t have anything to worry about.” I was just more focused on getting out of there without puking.

The whole appointment went like clockwork and went faster than I expected. My appointment was for 2:30 p.m. I pulled into the parking garage at 1:45 p.m.; was checked in a Radiology by 2 p.m.; on the scanner bed by 2:10 p.m.; and headed back to my car by 2:35 p.m. Again, I know there are tons of complaints about the VA healthcare system, but San Diego VA Medical Center has been top-notch as far as I’m concerned.

The radiologist thought they would have the full results available by Friday.

I’ll have to admit that on my commute to work this morning, I had a bit of a knot in my stomach. Not because I was afraid of the scan (now I am—a little), but because this is the beginning of the process that will give me results I may not want to hear.

On a related note, my employer-provided healthcare insurance did confirm that the Department of Nuclear Medicine at UCLA is in network, so that’s a good thing.

What’s next? Here’s an estimated timeline:

• Get online access to CT Scan results sometime this weekend or early next week.
• Have the bone scan on Friday, 23 July.
• Get online access to bone scan results 3-5 business days after the scan.
• Have a follow-up appointment to review both scan results with the urologist on 3 August.

I’ll contact UCLA to start that process and hopefully have all of my homework done in time for the appointment on 3 August.

Well, time to drink a few liters of water to purge that contrast out of me.

Be well!