Field Trip: a photo journal + the 15 steps of a CT scan!

Here is what I did today:

First I lounged in bed, swathed in blankets and Vicks vapor rub. Then I had several glasses of tea, watched the birds at the feeder, nibbled some muffins, took an Alka Seltzer, and got ready to go to the hospital in the middle of a snow storm for a CT scan.
[Note: I didn't have food/drink 2 hours before the CT scan, per instructions from the hospital!]

The following are instructions on how I've goes about getting a CT scan in a snow storm...







1. Wear something warm that will be easy to take off (since you'll be stripping to get the hospital gown on).


















2. Bring a touch stone.
This is something reassuring and personal to you.
CT scans may not be terribly upsetting to most other people, but because I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that is tied to the hospital, and medical-type stuff, I have to think about these things.
I don't wear jewelry to CT scans because you have to take it off anyway--I just wore my wedding ring and brought my locket as my touch stone.
It was my Great Great Aunt Ruth's and has pictures of her and my Great Great Grandmother in it, my Great Aunt, and my Grandma Marian that I was named after.
And I also slipped the quote that keeps me going in there--
"when you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on."





3. Go outside and gasp at all the snow !
Yes, it is Utah, and we get snow here.
But after last winter being so dry, this is unexpected.
And wonderful  !! We get snow here, but not typically 2 days of it nonstop.

This white lump you see before you is my car, with half a foot of snow on it!
And those black specks you see in the background are birds-- a huge flock was flying round and round, enjoying the weather, as I came outside to scrape off my car.
It was gorgeous.

Steps 4,5,6...
MARVEL at the snow.
Relish how it looks like and feels like the foam on top of your bubble bath, how you can toss it in the air and watch it float down like a fistful of powdered sugar.
Notice how it sticks to your eyelashes.

Laugh at the morons on Facebook that put on an update every 30 minutes bitching about the snow.  How the plows aren't out, how cold and miserable it is, wahwahwah.  Are they really surprised?
We live in Utah, people.  Where they had the WINTER OLYMPICS.
You wanna bitch about the cold, go to Russia.

These are the same people that were whining about the nasty inversion last week--going "I'm sick of breathing in sludge, it is so cold and gross, we need a big storm to clear out the air."
And the big storm comes, and they complain about that.

I, on the other hand, like to giggle like a kindergartner when the snow rolls up over my boots and nearly floods into my jeans.

Here I am, wiping the frame around my car door (so when I open it, it doesn't fall right into my seat...I've leaned this lesson every winter the hard way)--I wanted to share this picture so you can see how deep it is!

7.

Take your time driving to the hospital.
For some reason, I have not seen any snow plows this winter.  So the roads are very icy, which means a 10 minute drive has now turned into a 50 minute tedium on an ice-skating rink.
I left an hour early for the hospital (which is only a few blocks away), and it took me a while to find a parking spot, since most of them weren't plowed.
Then I sat in my car and took some deep breaths, warmed my hands, and listened to some Tom Petty for a few minutes to calm myself and get ready for the hike into the hospital.

This may sound like psychotic overreaction to you, but trust me, it is the PTSD.
And.... I did this trip by myself!! My husband and Dad could both have accompanied me, but I wanted to go in alone. And I did it.  Booooo!


#8 Remember where you parked.  Because it is waaaaaaay out there.

 Look at the sun! 

Still snowing...

#9  Hang out in the waiting room with everyone else getting stuff done, from colonoscopies to MRIs...

Get frustrated that 3/4 of the magazines available have Taylor Swift on the cover with titles like "WHY DIDN'T IT LAST?" and such.  Really?  It doesn't last because her M.O. is dating guys and causing problems in the relationship as a means to an end: her songwriting.
Isn't this common knowledge...?
I'm still not over her using that poor Kennedy kid.
Obviously people are more prone to date the Kennedys over the summer (they're in it for the free yacht rides) but did she really have to dump him at the end of August?  Couldn't she have at least tried to make it last as long as her tan, and go until September, just to avoid the cliche "summer fling"?

10.  Fill out the paperwork.
I especially like this one -- ARE YOU PREGNANT?  IS THERE ANY CHANCE YOU ARE PREGNANT?  HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU AREN'T PREGNANT?
And at the bottom it tells you they'll probably give you a pregnancy test anyway.
Talk about redundant! And they asked me 3 times in person again.  I actually said "yes, I have gotten knocked up in the 10 minutes since I filled out the paperwork that said I am not pregnant."
Luckily I had a nurse with a sense of humor.

11.  Put on your gown.

They made me take out my hair tie since it had metal in it.  BIG MISTAKE.

 The gratuitous gown shot.  I'm covering myself like that because we all know that these thin little numbers don't leave ANYTHING to the imagination.

12. Wait in the interior waiting room (like a VIP section, where everyone is nearly naked...not because it is a true VIP section in a trashy nightclub, but rather because you are all wearing the crappy hospital gowns).

Again grumble about the Taylor Swift articles in every. single. magazine.
Does the American public really care this much about a flighty little pop star?

I had to put all my stuff (phone included) in a locker at this point, since you can't bring it into the scan room.

13.  Go into the scanning room.  There you will see the CT scanner, which looks like a bed with a huge plastic donut around it.

They'll lie you down, give you an IV, and flush it with saline.
Weird enough, you can TASTE things as they move through your IV, and into your veins.  Yuck.
Then they position you and you don't move as the bed slides into the donut hole and they snap a picture of two.

14. Contrast.
Not every CT uses contrast, it depends on what the doctor wants to see.
My ENT wants to look at the soft tissue in my jaw to see what's going on in there and why I have a swollen lump under my chin.  A CT shows much more than a regular x-ray (CT stands for Computed Tomography, in case you were wondering), and an MRI shows a bit more than a CT.
But MRIs are loud and excruciatingly long, so I would take a CT any day over an MRI!

So they inject contrast (which is basically iodine) through your IV.

I was hooked up to a machine that looked like something you use for euthanasia, and it automatically put the contrast in my system.  Then it was back into the donut for more images.

Contrast is a bizarre thing because it BURNS.  Not in a "please God no I'm BURNING! NOT LIKE THIS!!!!!" way, but in a super-heated, uncomfortable and strange way.
It hits your vein and you feel a little warm and it isn't unpleasant.  Then it floods your system and your crotch feels like you put it under a heat lamp and you think you'll pee yourself (even if you've just gone to the bathroom 2 minutes ago), and your chest and extremities just feel weird--like you've been in a hot desert for 3 hours and there is no shade in sight!

Luckily, if the radiologist knows what they're doing, they snap the images quickly and get you out, and the super-heated feeling soon subsides.

But until you've experienced it for yourself, you cannot grasp that feeling.  Oh contrast.

We're old friends, but it still freaks me the hell out, makes me heart pound, and all that PTSD stuff.

But considering, I did a damn fine job yesterday.  We get the results in 4 days.

15. I rewarded myself with those mint Creamies that are dipped in chocolate..mm!

 Never fear, mine weren't reduced fat.  ;)

How To Deal.

I'm in bed.
I've been in bed for a couple of hours now.
And I'll be in bed tomorrow.

Yesterday at work, I was lightheaded and feverish and literally walked into a wall.
After a month of feeling worse and worse, I told Eli "ok. I really need to go to the doctor now."

So we headed to InstaCare after work and the doctor seemed pretty surprised at my condition, and that I had been sick for a month, and been on 3 bouts of antibiotics in that month and was feeling worse.
And we found what felt like a huge string of pearls under my skin, on the back side of my neck.

He did a chest x-ray and a bunch of blood work, and concluded that I had bronchitis at the beginning of December, which became pneumonia, which morphed in the severe flu I now have.
And those weird, hard bumps under my skin? The are glands that, when swollen, indicate a virus (as compared to the lymph nodes in front that indicate a bacterial infection).
But he was still unnerved.
Some of my symptoms could not be accounted for as merely "flu-like," and why are the glands on my left all swollen, but not the ones on the right?

He thinks this all somehow ties to my jaw and the never ending problems there, and told me to get a CT scan, making him the 2nd doctor in 2 days to tell me such.
So that's #1 on my To-Do list now, although it costs a ridiculous penny. I have to know what is going on in there.  I am scared to know. But I need to.
Whenever I chew something now (even just chocolate!), I get a throbbing pain in my temples.
And that ain't normal.

He told me to take it easy.  Thus, why I left work early today, and why I brought my laptop home to work off site a bit tomorrow.

So instead of having to deal with the bitchy drama of the office, and go downstairs for a refuge in my tea break, I can sleep in, stretch out on my couch, and answer my emails while watching Grey's Anatomy and drinking as much tea as I please.  No high heels, just my bathrobe. DEAL.


As I drove home from work today, the inversion was still in the air.
Inversion is what Salt Lake folks like to call the smoggy shit that invades our air every winter.
Because we live in a valley, it is basically a bowl for pollution, so the cold, filthy air gets trapped in, and the warmer, cleaner jet stream just floats over the top.
It has been bitter cold, and the air literally has a grit to it.  Disgusting. And SO bad for you (and a big reason everyone has been getting sicker, not better).

I took a hot bath and collapsed in bed, my wet hair soaking into the pillow.
And when Eli got home and started bustling around in the kitchen, turning all the lights on, I opened my eyes and... SNOW.
Not just a few white flakes drifting down, but a blizzard kicking up tufts of white powder!

Eli tried to run to the store to get ingredients for some hot jambalaya, one of is specialties, but after he saw several cars spin out, and nearly crashed himself (going 8 miles an hour), he came home.
So...blueberry waffles for dinner! (The blueberries were frozen).

BITCH BITCH BITCH

I know I've been complaining a bit on here.
Forgive me.

As my best friend Torie put it, when this much shit is going on (especially the endless health problems), you get rights to grumble a bit.

SO GRUMBLE I SHALL!

I got a promotion at work.
Which is all well and good (especially considering I got it after being here only 1 week!!),
but when you consider the state of my team, this blessing is also a curse.
We have far too much estrogen here, and the drama that comes with it.

We have already had a screaming fight during a meeting, experienced silent treatments between team members, and HR is heavily involved (because of employees threatening to get lawyers).
There are racist remarks involved, secretive smoking that one gal does at her desk, and cliques.
I hate cliques.
These girls are obvious about it too-- going "would so-and-so (specifically) like to go downstairs and make tea with me?" and exclude everyone else. Then they disappear for 40 minutes to gossip.
They are not brewing tea.  I don't know any tea that steeps for 40 minutes. That tea could kill a mule.

And when I say "girls", I mean GROWN ASS WOMEN.  Older than me.  In their 30s. Some have kids that are more mature than them.  It is hell.
Whispering, name calling, and now, one woman is deleting documents.  Legal department documents.

So you see what I am dealing with.
It is enough to go on, but my health problems are giving me shit on the side.  It is a pretty terrible double whammy and I am exhausted.

I went to get my salivary gland drained yesterday--a simple procedure that I was looking forward to, so I could get rid of the painful swollen lump on my chin and hopefully ditch the head cold I have had for 1 month with it,
but the ENT specialist looked at me, inspected the lump, and said he doesn't think I even HAVE salivary glands left on that side of my jaw.
And he wants me to get a CT scan.  Woohoo.  Especially since my insurance wants me to pay at least $800 for said CT scan.  I don't think that will happen anytime soon.

This other stuff (feels like the flu, but they believe it is related to this weird jaw problem) has just gotten worse, I have a stuffed up nose, and that lovely, irritated, red rim that you get around your nostrils from too much sniffling.  It is not the best. And I've got a fever.

There, that is my BITCH BITCH BITCH for the day.

Now for the fun stuff.
The stuff that keeps me giggling through it all !

I Mistook 2013 for the Mexican Border

Remember how we realized I was allergic to my implants, and I had them removed?
And I got better?
But I had a complication from surgery, and my salivary gland was blocked with a stone, so I had to go on antibiotics and hot salt water rinses to let it drain? And it was getting so much better?

Well it was a-faking.
The goiter I got to enjoy during Christmas (bad swelling under my chin from the clogged salivary gland) had gone down and I was feeling very good!

Until the new year, when I started struggling with pain again.
Yesterday it became unbearable and the surgeon kept telling me to "just go to the ER."
Even though he is a specialist that performed a procedure on me that is having all of these negative after-effects... he is tired of dealing with my mysterious and frequent health problems, and does not appreciate that not all of us can jet off from our jobs for 6 hours and drop a couple hundred bucks for an afternoon in the Emergency Room.

So I gritted my teeth (well not really, that would be far too painful) and I've been trying to ignore the pain. And my PTSD, which is attempting to sneak up on me.  Looking in the mirror, with this lump on my neck, I am reminded of when I had a cancerous tumor as a 7 year old.  And that makes my Post Traumatic Stress go RAAAAAAAWR!!

And I squeal "SHUT UP PLEASE!! HOW CAN ANYONE GET ANY WORK DONE WHEN YOU ARE raaawring IN THEIR HEAD AND SPIRIT?! COME BACK LATER WHEN I'M WELL-RESTED AND CAN HANDLE YOUR ANTICS!"

But it is a strong and unfeeling thing, so my best arguments with it are quite unsuccessful.

I am seeing the surgeon this afternoon to figure out what the devil is going on now (another infection? An inflamed nerve?).

And I am kicking myself for thinking that 2013 was an escape.
You know how, when things go bad, you picture yourself jumping in a convertible with a knapsack of clothes and bottle of tequila and just cruising down to the Mexican border?
Because you figure problems can't chase you there.  They get to the line that marks the beginning of another country and turn back, kicking the dirt in their surrender.

Well I felt that way about 2013.
I thought I was leaving my pains and surgery scars and the emotional scars and the absolute mess that has been my health for the last 2 years behind.

I will be the first to admit I was wrong.