Okay call me a hypocrite, but today I have a CT scan and I'm not exactly a happy camper.  I know it's for my own good ---to see how well the chemo is working ---and I should be thankful knowing that I'm in God's hands all along my journey here with cancer.  But still I'm only human, and having a scan done is no fun at all and is rather painful for me.   So I don't exactly go in without some worry and griping.

For most people, a CT scan is no big deal.  You just don't eat or drink anything for hours beforehand and then have to down a couple of nasty tasting contrast drinks and get an IV and go in and out of an open scan machine a few times and it's over.  Simple.  Easy.  Nothing to gripe about.   Well except for the fear of the result, but that's another subject.  I'm taking here about the physical aspects of doing a scan.  I have problems every time and because I do, I don't like taking scans.

First off, because I can't eat or drink anything before having the scan, that means I have to postpone taking my every day meds.  One of my meds is Effexor to help with my hot flashes, but it's an antidepressant.  I've learned the hard way that it's not good for me to delay in taking it.  Once I thought I would just wait to take it after a late morning scan and I cried the whole evening.  Not that I had a reason to cry, but just because that's the side effect of going off of this drug too quickly ---depression.  I know it was just half a day, but I'm very sensitive to getting side effects.   So now I make sure I take my meds just before the required fasting time or bring my pills along with me to take immediately after the scan.  I don't want another "crying incident".

Secondly, those contrast drinks the most awful, horrible things I've ever had to consume.  The first scan or two, yeah, it was yucky, but now after eight, it's something I really dread having to down the "chalky shakes". 

 And thirdly, the most worrisome and painful part of the scan, is the IV.  I'm not at all afraid of needles or seeing my own blood.   I'm just run out of veins for them to use.  My veins are small, covered in an ever growing fat layer, and tend to "blow up" or "close down" as the nurses say.  So it's a challenge ---a major challenge ---to find a vein on me.  It now takes 3 attempts to find one, and has taken up to five.  I can tell withing seconds if the vein won't work because it will be painful.  Forget the quick pricking pain, I'm talking a longer pain which lasts a full minute and will be a dull ache for hours afterwards.  My arms show evidence of this struggle.  They are covered in bruises in various colored stages of healing.  Painful and ugly.  Even days afterwards, my arms will ache. 

And most recently, I discovered that I'm one of the few who have side effects of the scan IV contrast infusion.  They did it last time with a power infusor which was too fast for me and I suffered a severe back of the head headache which lasted for hours. 

So a CT scan is a painful process for me.   I'll see how this one goes.  Hopefully, I won't get the headache when I tell them they need to set the infusion on the lowest possible setting, and maybe they'll get a vein within one or two attempts.