Following the CT scans for my kidney stones I was referred back to King’s. They were now dealing with my cancer aftercare having been discharged by Guy’s following the end of my 6 month chemotherapy course and the scan that had not shown any sign of my cancer having spread. To be certain that the nodules were cancerous (and had spread from my original colorectal cancer site) they needed me to have a PET scan. ‘Simples’ I hear you say. Oh how wrong you are!
Following an appointment at King’s they referred me for a PET scan to be done, at my request, at Maidstone. The appointment came through within a week. Again, highly efficient. However I had to cancel because of a reoccurrence of my kidney stones and their associated pain. I re-booked a week later and duly turned up on the Saturday for my appointment. At which point the fun began.
If you are not familiar with a PET scan you have to fill out and read a lot of forms when you arrive. Even though I had completed the same forms electronically prior to my first (but cancelled) appointment, I had to fill in exactly the same forms again on arrival. Oh for the days of filling in a form with triplicate copies using carbon paper. Anyway and moving on for some reason, still unknown, they are worried that pumping you full of radioactivity may crimp your style and that they should check with you beforehand. Having satisfied myself that I was not pregnant, breast feeding or going to be within 1 mile (radius) of someone under the age of 15 in the next 24 hours I duly signed, giving my consent, again. I should have, at this point, shut up. However, the interrogation continued and I rather unwisely gave truthful answers to some verbal questions.
Rule number 1. When reading instuctions do not try and interpretate them. Having faithfully followed the instruction ‘do not eat or drink anything for 6 hours prior to the scan’, when I causally mentioned, following literally minutes of interrogation by the nurse/ receptionist, that I had drunk about 20ml of milk to take my immunosuppressants I was met with what I could only describe as an ‘oh really and a raise of the eye brows’ response. I immediately sensed that this was not good. When she then further said ‘I’ll need to let the doctor know’ my ‘imminent threat detector’ started quivering faster than Robin Hood’s arrows during a hurricane. I was then released from my interrogation cell and shortly thereafter went through to the holding pen.
Having got this far, the next 15 minutes or so was taken up answering most of, if not all of, the questions I had previously answered on my forms on my arrival (and electronically before that). They confirmed that they were still waiting to hear back from the doctor but that didn’t stop them sticking a needle, similar in size to Cleopatra’s needle, into my finger to check my blood glucose level. They then referenced an answer I had given in my electronically submitted form three weeks previousl! OK, it’s possible something had changed in three weeks but in 15 minutes? They now were nervous because I had indicated that once, in perhaps the 15 CT scans i had had previously, once i had felt slightly claustrophobic. Rule number 2. Honesty in not always the best policy. Now the single issue I faced had developed into an Orthrus-like problem (pedants note, can be spelt Orthus). Anyway the deathblow was coming quickly. A knock on the door, a nurse head around the door, ‘sorry the doctor says no’. The 20ml of milk I had had, now 2 hours ago, clearly had life threatening consequences and so the scan could not go ahead. OK, me bad but they wouldn’t have proceeded anyway. Because of my multiple episodes (one) of claustrophobia they would not have proceeded with the scan as they insisted I was sedated prior to my scan. Now the real fun began…