The CAT scan is going to have to buy me dinner before our next date. When we locked eyes yesterday in the radiology wing, I was taken by his smooth rounded dimensions. Soft and enticing yet technical and commanding - a nice combination in a piece of nuclear machinery. Never mind that he looks a lot like the progeny of some sordid one-night stand between a giant glossy tanned Krispy Kreme donut and Stargate, it was his serene solidarity and his sliding table that captivated me. Staring at the ceiling, his one Gort-like laser eye caught me in its glance and told to me to take a deep breath and hold it.
I was prone on his platform in no time. We moved as one...
He sees right through me, though, and is holding out with just banana (barium chalk) flavored cocktails and a little (hypodermic) needling before our relationship fully develops...
Gag! That's enough florid prose. Fabio, that's a wrap! I am even icking my own self out!
CAT scan saw my inter-intestinal interloper clear as a bell and even clearer when they pushed the plunger down on the "contrast" dye from a remote glassed-in booth location. (Don't even think about the implications of that visual...Disconcerted even me with all my hail-fellow-well-met defense mechanism bravado and sick sense of humor.) Did you know that you can feel contrast dye as is travels from your arm to your extremities? It went right down, I kid you not, to my "lady parts" and gave me a little provocative nudge! I honestly thought if had gotten any warmer down there, I was going to embarrass myself with a little vocalization. But I controlled the urge. No yodeling in Radiology. Or cell phones. Says so on the wall. Radiation. Wonder if my credit cards are all stripped now....hmmmmm.
The space invader? It's a beaut! First impressions are always iffy, and this is no exception. The tumor is actually anterior, meaning toward my back in position more near little Miss Kidney and big ol Mr. Vena Cava. In fact, the thing is encroaching on Vena Cava's space like a stinking lumpy hygiene-challenged homeless person pressing right up next to you in a crowded subway car in the tunnel! All my other organs are organized just fine. I knew that! I am perfect!
There's the phone. Next step: (Mystery Science Theater reveal riff - duhn-duhn-DUHN!)
FINE NEEDLE BIOPSY.
We're going to stab it guided by CAT scan, yank out some cells, and chart the course from there. Today. All quick like and before I can obsess with what's going on.
Knock, knock? Who's there? Mr. Good Drugs. Well, howdy-do! Come right on in! Can I get you something?
As my son says, "It's just a big zit Mom. They'll pop it and it's all great from there!" Coolio.
I woke up this morning anxious. My plan was to shower, drop the kids at school, drive down to the Medical Center and sit outside the surgeon's entrance with a sign: "Have tumor, will amuse you while you slice it out! First come, first served." I am told by Dr. Norma Popsiclehands, who called me this morning at the butt-crack of dawn, this is not the best strategy. She's got some others up her sleeve, so I'll curb my renegade impatience just this once.
In spite of all this, and when all was said and done, I had the (proudly) demented wherewithal to actually ask to see the tissue they had harvested from my, now, pet resident abdominal tumor. After all, Dr. Hunky Italian Radiologist had done the trick of threading that needle through some of the densest musculature on any human full of raw nerve endings and actual kidneys and spines and such. I thought I should see, maybe take a picture. The tech nurse, who by now was relieved that I didn't turn out to B-1 of those who end up screaming or moaning or thrashing during this amazingly freaky procedure, happily held a small bottle in front of my face where I-2 could see floating in clear liquid, a tiny little orange accordianed tube of flesh. A miniature Cheeto. We had gotten all stabby with the tumor and it yielded up its cheesy greasy secrets.
