You could have knocked me over with a feather. Although the appointment for the damn CT scan kept sliding from my mind in the weeks beforehand, I couldn’t fully forget it– it was anchored to the calendar page, along with the appointment for the echo (or, echocardiogram, for those of you watching at home. That’s a sonogram of the heart, because the miracle drug that keeps stupid cancer at bay can also eat my heart alive.) (OK, that’s sort of an exaggeration. But the drug can seriously screw it up.) The point is, unlike my last scans, where my anxiety drummed so loudly it could have kept the neighbors up all night, I hadn’t been giving either of these tests a second thought.
Today was test day. First, the echo. That was easy peasy– and included some detailed conversations with the tech about heart function, artery size, etc. I love that stuff! I followed it up with a Covid booster shot and still had time for lunch.
On time for the CT? Check.
Blood test to check kidney function OK? (Because the contrast material they inject can eat your kidneys alive.) Check.
Settled onto the CT table that moves you in and out of the machine? Check.
First pass into the machine? (Hold your breath….Breathe) Check.
Second pass? (Hold your breath….Breathe) Check.
For the third pass, they shoot dye into the little port they’ve stuck in your vein. That dye spreads in a warm flush, making you feel like you need to pee as it moves down your body. While that’s going on, a giant whoo-whoosh whoo-whoosh whoo-whoosh starts to hum through the machine. Today, they squirted the contrast, the whoo-whoosh started, they slid me into the machine and… Bam! Pow! Anxiety, or something related, exploded.
You could have knocked me over with a feather.
My eyes grew damp as the machine whirred. But I was a good patient– I held my breath, I breathed, even as feelings I couldn’t name scorched through me.
I was a little light-headed when I got off the table, but I needed to get out of there so I didn’t mention it. (I mean, if I’d fallen over, they would have figured it out.) All the way home, I tried to get a grip. Then my phone pinged. A notification. A traffic light turned red– good timing. I checked the notification. I had a new test result. The phone’s facial ID got me into my chart fast– fast enough to get the highlights.
Stable examination with post treatment scarring and interstitial distortion in the right hilum. No evidence of local disease recurrence. No metastases.
The echo and other results trickled in over the course of the next few hours, all normal. Yet, I’ve been out of sorts and quietly teary, even through the wonderful first outdoor bike ride of the year, even as I make tea and write this post.
It’s not PTSD, not exactly. But cancer patients do experience PTS, post-traumatic stress. Three hours in the hospital adjacent to the cancer center might be a little triggering. 🙄 (Ya think?)
Truth be told, there may be some bleed-through from another track of my life. I’ve been volunteering as a tutor with some teens who have been deeply traumatized by sexual exploitation and trafficking. I knew the work was going to be a challenge, but the past week has been so sad, so distressing. At different times in my life, I’ve heard people say, “Being good at something doesn’t mean it’s good for you;” I wonder if this applies to me, now?
I’ll give it some thought, but first, a little celebrating is in order.
Stable, baby. I’ll take it.
Thanks for reading. Here’s hoping you get some news to celebrate in the coming days!
Cakes are definitely simpler. Here are the most recent ones.
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