Anxious for answers, anxious to get on with my life, we ask for the earliest CATscan, regardless of where we have to go to get it. Tomorrow morning? Perfect! We immediately call the oncologist. Tomorrow afternoon? Perfecter!! Everything has been moving so fast, which we are both thankful for.
I wake up Friday like it is Christmas morning. I am so excited to finally be on the road to recovery/treatment. I am also very hungry on this road since I haven't been allowed to eat or drink anything today. Luckily, they have a nice big jug of slightly orange flavored chalk for me to drink for my test. For those unfamiliar with this, the consistency of this wonderful concoction is just slightly more liquid than setting concrete. I get about a third of it down when they call me back. That's all I can do. The nice nurse says that will be enough and tells me to lay down on the sliding table...that doesn't have hand rails...and I can't really bend at the waist. She looks at me standing there. I look pitiful. Then it dawns on her that I need help getting down there. She comes over and helps me lower myself into position. She throws a sheet over me and tells me to slide down my shorts so the zipper doesn't show up. I have a zipper? Because of the location of my incision and the location of the offending part's removal, I have been wearing over-sized boxer shorts (which look just like shorts) underneath over-sized shorts (which look just like boxer shorts). Since I want to put as little pressure on the aforementioned areas as possible, I don't wear any that would be tight enough to require the use of a zipper. Still unable to bend at the waist, I try to shimmy my way out of my shorts.
The nurse comes over and sticks my vein. She looks for the one vein that doesn't have a big bruise on it already from the previous two weeks of jabbing and jabs me there. As she starts the dye, she says I may feel a warm or cold sensation in my arm followed by the taste of garlic in my mouth. Right on cue, it happens. First a pleasant little hint of garlic. Then the sensation of burping after eating a slice of garlic bread. Then the overwhelming feeling of having just sucked the life force out of eight cloves of garlic followed with a garlicy gargle. WOW! I was hungry about 3 seconds ago, but now, not so much. Then, I am really glad she gives me the next warning. She says, "Some people will later have the sensation that they have went to the bathroom in their pants. But don't worry, it's just the dye moving through your system."
She walks out of the room and the scanner begins its whirring. I think to myself how funny it is that some people feel a little wee down there. "Take a deep breath." "Hold." "Release." I hear that several times as the slide pushes me in and out of the tube like I am riding on an old mechanical type writer, and then it happens. "Take a deep breath." "Hold." And I just crapped my pants! "Release." I think I did already. Did I crap my pants? It certainly feels like I am sitting in a pile of crap...well, I don't know exactly what that feels like, but I imagine it feels a lot like I what I am feeling right now. Dear God, please let this be that side effect she was talking about. I thought she was talking about a little wee, not a giant mushy poo, which is what I think may have happened. I keep being pushed in and out of the tube. I can't check. I guess when this is over the nurse and I will find out at the same time whether I crapped my pants or if this is just a drill. At least if I crapped my pants, my shorts will be clean since I had to shimmy.
The test finally ends. The garlic subsides and the pooing sensation was the dye, either that or me and the poo are now at the same temperature, because I don't feel like I am sitting in anything warm anymore. The nurse tells me to slide on my shorts and get up. The problem is, I have shimmied beyond my non-waist-bending reach and cannot pull up my pants until I get up. Now, how do I ask a nurse to help me up and then I will pull up my shorts without sounding like a bad punchline to a schoolyard joke. I decide the best thing to do is to lay there and look pitiful. It works. I explain, while very slowly in a non-creepy, non-Chris-Hansen-attention-grabbing way, show her that my "underwear" is basically shorts and I need help upright so I can then be able to pull up my shorts shorts. Luckily, she smiles and says "Oh, I keep forgetting your surgery was just a week ago." The nice nurse sends me on my way, while telling me about one more side-effect. I need to drink plenty of fluids to keep from being dehydrated, while staying away from caffeine. We have a long, heated discussion about what exactly is "staying away" from caffeine (i.e. Pepsi) as she pushes me out in the lobby. She gives us a CD-ROM of my scans for the oncologist and I KNOW today is going to be a day full of answers!
A couple hours later, I am at the oncologist's office. It is a large building with several oncologists. You see people in the waiting room at all stages of care. We go back to the room and the very nice gentleman sits me down and says "Don't worry, you are going to survive this and be free of cancer." I start bawling like a little baby, and I don't know why. I never thought for a second I wouldn't beat this. I don't know why I am crying. I feel so stupid. He asks if I had my CATscan yet and we proudly whip out the CD, to which he replies, "Oh, I can't read those. We'll wait for the results." He talks about my options. Twenty to thirty scans over the next ten years, while waiting for results on each one (and possibly really crapping on the table because you think the sensation is just the dye). We already don't like that one. Option two is chemo. Less scans and less chance of anything popping back up. OK. Option three is radiation, that may cause more and worse cancer than it kills. Hmmm. Option two is sounding better and better.
We didn't get our answers, but we are on our way. We met a very nice oncologist and in a few days, everything will be in place. I wait for my parents to show up for the weekend. I am looking forward to getting out of the house. I hydrate all day long, limiting myself to one small Pepsi. Life is starting to look up. That is until. The Wrath of CATscan.....which I will talk about in way too much detail tomorrow.
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