Before my appointment, my mom and I had a very serious discussion about my brain. More importantly if I had one. Mom decided that I had butterflies instead of a brain. I thought that was cuter than the cobwebs I was imagining, so I went with it. Although I actually suspect there is a little evil garden gnome in there with a hammer, wreaking havoc.
Being the nerd that I am, I was a little excited to go to my appointment. I wasn't allowed to eat for 4 hours beforehand because I was doing a scan with contrast. Four hours was no problem. However, when I noticed that I hadn't eaten breakfast by my cut-off time, I was a little bummed...and hungers. I wasn't really too hungry, until I was sitting in the waiting room. Some lady came in with a gross looking drive-through pizza hut pizza...god it smelled good! I want to know who brings food to the doctors office? Who can't wait that long? Anyway, luckily I didn't have to wait long and was ushered back to the room with the big doughnut thing in it.
After a little confusion and phone calls, I was finally loaded up on the machine. They needed to take a scan of my sinuses. I started getting nervous. I was laying there, eyes closed and I heard the machine turn on. I tensed up a little. I have a touch of claustrophobia. I never let it get to me, but there are times when I'm aware of it. I started feeling that little twinge of that closed in feeling. Then I heard the machine rev up. I started feeling dizzy. I felt like I could feel the scan going through my head. It was really making me nervous. Since I had to do two scans, I had already decided to keep my eyes closed so that I wouldn't notice how small the area is. However, in my mini anxiety attack, I opened my eyes. And noticed that I wasn't even getting scanned yet. Dumb ass. That's so me. After that, I totally got over myself and just relaxed and went with it.
The next scan was the brain scan and required contrast. So they had to hook up a IV(I guess that's what it was) with a liquid dye in it that goes into all the veins and blood vessels, changing the color of the blood. Making it easier to see all the veins, so they could better see any problems. The only problem was finding a vein. It usually takes a while for technicians to get the right spot in my veins. Yeah I'm stubborn and so are my veins. This guy worked on me for a while. He was trying to find a vein right where my wrist and my thumb meet. Started on the left arm and after jabbing around there for a while, he finally bandaged me and moved on to my right arm. He worked there for a while. He found a spot. I could tell he was working around. Then I felt a warm spot on my arm...sorry to be gross...he hit a little gusher. Blood was running down my wrist. So he gave up there but had to wait for me to stop bleeding. Then he went to get the doctor. This guy gave it a good try too. I was pretty relaxed and not really worried. This wasn't new to me. However, they started feeling very guilty about all the needles and torture. So the doctor finally decided that he would run the brain scan without contrast. If it looked good, then we'd just leave it at that. If he felt we needed to go back and try the dye again, we would. After half an hour spent trying to insert that needle, it took five minutes to finish up the second scan. They said everything looked good. He would just send the scans over to my doctor, and if she really wanted it redone then we would try again.
So as the tech guy is apologizing about all the needles, I figured it was the perfect time to ask to see my brain photo. Because how awesome would that be! He looked nervously at the computer room. He was considering it, I could tell. Then he said no. Then before I could stop it, the nerd in me came out. I heard myself asking this cute young guy if there were in fact butterflies in there. Yup. Can't help myself. Of course he took me right up to the waiting room and dumped me there. I know he went running back to take another look at my brain scan. I'm sure he found some retardation in there this time.
I left with some nice bruising from all the attempts at getting an IV in me, starved myself for no reason and had no brain photo. I'm a little mad that he couldn't show me my brain. I would have totally showed you guys! So I'm going to beg my doctor to show me. I want a picture of my brain!!!
Although if there are butterflies in there, that would explain my inability to beat that stupid easy setting Nancy Drew kid game.
Other than the many attempts with needles, I am glad to hear your appt went well. I hope you get to see your pic of your brain. I think its only fair if they take your pic that you get to see it!
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