Ok, so you have probably already seen this posted elsewhere…  It was sooooo much fun that I just HAD to share it here too!  =)  For those of you who don’t know, I had a Pancreas CT on Friday, June 15th.  Here’s how it went…

Don’t underestimate the power of the dye!

The needle hurts like hell (after all, it is “the biggest one we have”), and they stick it in your vein, tape it on, inject you with some pre-dye crap, brief you on the effects of the dye once they inject it, and then send you back out to the waiting room, where you sit for yet another 1/2 hour and all of the patients are over 65 years old and they are looking at you wondering why the hell you are in there because, as one woman told me, “You’re so young, and you look like the perfect picture of health.” Then the nurse brings you two large cups of water that you have to drink before your scan. Thankfully it wasn’t the mildly flavored white chalky crap that the other folks had to drink.

When they finally decide that it is your turn, you are then told that your pants have to be down around your thighs, and your underwire bra has to be up over your boobs…which is a feat in itself while you are laying flat on your back, they are holding a sheet over you, and you have a huge-ass needle stuck in your arm.

Then the scanning begins. The recorded voice tells you to “Breathe in deeply and hold it,” and then a few seconds later, after the table is moved back and forth with you on it, “Now breathe.” You do this two or three times BEFORE the crazy dye is injected into the tube attached to the huge-ass needle stuck in your arm. Here comes the dye. They are kind enough to tell you that they are going to do it before they do, so you can expect the effects discussed earlier when they stuck the huge-ass needle into your arm. You feel the heat go in. Then it moves up your arm, to your chest, to your nether regions (this is where “you’ll feel like you just wet your pants”), to your head (where “you’ll get a funny taste in your mouth” but is actually more like you just ate a hot pepper), and then you feel it disperse to your extremities, all the while feeling like someone set you on fire. “Warm” my ass. I got light-headed, and couldn’t talk - I was talking to the nurse when the dye started its journey and literally couldn’t speak anymore. Then, the recorded voice says, “Breathe in deeply and hold it,” the table moves, and then, “Now breathe.”Before you know it all of the burning, peeing, funny tasting feelings are gone, and the tech is asking you if you need help getting up. “Um, well, first I’d like to put my clothes back where they were when I walked in here.” She walks away, and the nurse that stuck the huge-ass needle in your arm comes back to tell you that you can go back to the waiting room, where you proudly announce that you survived.

Then, for the last time, the nurse calls your name. The time has come for the huge-ass needle to be removed from your arm and you get to go home!!! WHOO HOO!! But first, you have to find out what the hell happened to the TGI Fridays that was across the street a week ago, and is now GONE, because you fully intended on running over there to get their fan-freaking-tabulous Cobb Salad to go. Dammit anyway!!!

On your way out, you settle for a Dairy-free Espresso Mocha Smoothie with chocolate syrup and whipped cream & sprinkles, even though the nurse just told you that the dye will exit your body via your urine, so “drink a lot of water.”  You’ll make a salad when you get home…