Saturday, May 16, 2009

"Win some , Lose some"





The scan is over. Commense glowing in the dark.Radioactive iodine, and the post ct scan doldrums from the contrast allergy are in full swing. I love the catch 22's you humans get to deal with. NPO before a test means the patient is almost sure to become a human pin cushion when they try to start an IV for a dual phase computed tomography. This was the case with Bobby yesterday. The nurse (male,... bummer) punted to the other nurse (female,... hooray) after four sticks, all missing the vein. The last one almost had our former beer drinker fainting. It must have something to do with anticipating one stick, but after three misses, panic starts to set in. For the patient as well as the nurse. You could see it all over his poor face. Two years ago for Sharon's brain decompression surgery, the anesthesiologist missed over 10 times. Bobby stopped counting at 10, and it took 20 minutes after that with 4 large men holding her down to get a large catheter in to her artery on her forearm. No blame on the doc, it wasn't in the card for him that day. Yesterday did not even come close to that kind of torture for Bob. Especially when you take in to account that he didn't crap out from the iodine contrast with was auto injected in to that carefully placed IV, and that the scans showed no liver cancer, which is a big risk now, and that at the end of the day, because the nice lady who placed his IV and did his scan asked him if he had any other tests later in the day, which he might need a blood draw, and they decide to keep the IV in just case. So, later after meeting with the WORLD FAMOUS HEPATOLOGIST he couldn't stop smiling, as they flushed out his hard won IV, and managed to draw fresh blood , 6 vials out of it, sparing any more punctures for one day. Win. As my old grand dad Juan D BillyBob used to say-"Unas veces se gana y otras se pierde" . Win some, lose some.

Before
After
Say Cheese!

Friday, May 15, 2009

CT time once again

I am beginning to feel a sense of deja vu. How about you? The last time the CT scan happened, Bobby got really sick presumably from the contrast, prednisone premedication, plus benydril, and Iodine contrast ( allergy). So, the doctors tried to have Bobby take a different kind of test this time, a stand up MRI. That was last month. He lasted 4 minutes in the machine before begging to be let loose. Pain. Squeezed me and SPLEEN Mc Queen big time...It was a combined spine/liver MRI. So, on Monday, he had an open scan MRI which looked like this...He tried something new. He took a small spray bottle from the cosmetics section of the grocery store, and filled it with water. He told the tech that he would have a much higher rate of success if he could wet his mouth with the spray bottle. She had no objections, except to say to please only spray when it was quiet. He did. No panic inducing dry mouth, or difficulty swallowing, gagging, or throat clearing. . None. At all. He held the spray bottle next to his mouth, and every thing was cool... and moist. Daughter hates that word, moist. Moist. But Moist is in a key player in Dr Horrible's sing along blog. Bobby's thing this summer. Big time. Freeze ray... stun ray... computer aided x ray. Tommorrow.
Be there, or be square. Bill.