Oh What Joy

Yesterday was one I had been dreading for weeks. Another day in the hospital Pet-CT scanning machine. It is one of four tests I hate with a vengeance, and with good cause.

The worst is the MRI scanner. I have to lie on a bed that is then slid inside a tube. My head, abdomen, and legs all must be tightly strapped down so that I cannot move, not even so much as a millimeter. Then a wand with a panic button on it is gently placed into my hand. That is because the technicians know that many people suffer from extreme claustrophobia, and I am one of them.

If at any time in the next forty minutes I feel like I cannot take a minute more, I can simply press that button and they will come running in to pull me out.

For the time I spend in the very narrow tube, I get bombarded with all manner of scary sounds that sound like I am caught bang in the middle of some sort of galactic apocalypse, with no sign of escape. To date, I have never used that panic button, but I have been pretty darn close.

The next, easily, equally uncomfortable, test is inside what is called a PET-CT scanning machine. The tube they deftly feed you into is not quite as narrow as the one an MRI machine has, but it is still not very pleasant.

For this one, the unpleasantness starts with the prep. First I cannot have any breakfast or indeed eat anything for about twelve hours before I leave home. All I can have is the odd sip of water.

At the hospital, I have to get dressed into hospital garb and lie on a hospital trolley, in a small ante-room. The lights are turned down low and I have to wait twenty minutes for my body to relax.

They then take a dab of blood to see what my sugar level is. This type of test does not react well to high blood sugar. Then we have to wait for the blood test result.

Finally, they place a small towel over my eyes to protect them from the effects of the radioactive agent they have to inject into my bloodstream. That injection goes into the back of my hand, and it burns.

I then have to wait some more to allow the radioactive agent to circulate all around my body. Finally, an hour later, I am wheeled into the positron doughnut tube and, as with the MRI machine, I have to be strapped in.

This time there aren't any sounds at all, and only occasional movement of the bed in and out of the machine. So no claustrophobia, thank the lord. However, after forty minutes of strapped-in stillness, my back is aching to the point of me screaming for them to pull me out of the tube.

Number three on my hospital machine hate list is the endoscopy camera down my throat into my stomach, without any general anesthetic. They do however give your tonsils a quick spray of an anesthetic that tastes like sanitized rat piss. When that tube with a camera on the end goes down my throat, I feel like I am choking to death, and I gag and puke at the same time.

And so to the scariest of them all, the Central Catheter into your vein at the wrist. This is pretty darn heavy, non-physical medical trauma. For this, you have to be hospitalized. Then, an hour or so before the operation, the surgeon will visit you with some papers to sign. He will tell you how many chances in a thousand you have of having a fatal heart attack or stroke and dying, as a result of the op. It is something like one in a thousand, not odds that fills me with optimism.

"So, Mr Emerson, are you happy to go ahead on that basis?"

"Happy? I might die and you want me to be happy about it? Like hell am I happy?"

"Yes, I know, but if we don't do it the odds of dying from some unknown cardiac anomaly are the same."

My lovely wife interposed with "Darling, a hospital operating theatre with a highly experienced heart surgeon by your side is the best place to have a fatal heart attack and die!" You have to love this woman, if only for her pragmatism.

"Oh well, go for it, don't mind me, it's only my frickin life you're talking about in such a casual way."

The truth is that the actual operation is totally painless. No general anesthetic, just a local one where the tube with a camera goes into your wrist.

From the wrist, the tube goes right up your arm, across your chest, and right into the inside of your heart for a good look around! You can even watch the massive plasma TV screen next to the bed and see it all as it happens.

In all, it takes about thirty or forty minutes. Apart from the initial incision in your wrist, which hurts a little even with the local anesthetic, there isn't any further discomfort. You just lie there waiting to see if Mister Clumsy Surgeon clips a vital part of a vein, which will kill you stone dead in seconds flat. The discomfort is all in the mind.

***

Are there any tests that are a piece of piss? Yes, a Colonoscopy, you will not even know if they have done it, not all invasive on the pain scale. And Cataracts are also nothing to worry about. Had both of mine done with a laser, wide awake, and it was a truly incredible operation that transformed my sight.

Overall, I have had to become philosophical about it all. It is part and parcel of the dubious benefits of getting old and infirm and being kept alive, to live another day, or hopefully many more years to come.