"How Dry I Am"?
"We have to hydrate you for 2 hours before we can do your CT scan. Your labs showed a creatinine level of 1.38, so your glomerular filtration rate is 40, and the contrast dye will be too slow to clear from your kidney at that rate." The CT scan nurse let that sink in, and then said, "You didn't hear this from me, but next time, before your labs, drink water. I know you're not supposed to for the scan, but you're dehydrated. Your labs will come out better and we won't have to do this again."
Schedules at the Cleveland Clinic are built under the assumption that all will be well. In this case, I was thrown way out of whack, so I was 45 minutes late to my bone scan, didn't get lunch until 2:00, and didn't get to see Dr. G until 2:45. By being late to my bone scan I probably disrupted all subsequent appointments - not my fault, not the CT folks' fault, but the nuclear med techs were definitely unhappy about it. Every bone scan takes a minimum of 20 minutes and can take much longer depending on requested details and the radiologist's speed at reading them. So one wrinkle in the day's fabric begets another, and another ...
There was a bit of growth in the lung tumor but I still qualify as "stable" for the clinical trial. Hence, we go forward with it for as long as we can. Onward for the next six weeks!
An aside: I lived in Indianapolis for a number of years in the vicinity of 52nd and College. I was just up the street from the home of Frances Farmer, and around the corner from the fabulous Red Key Tavern (haunt of Kurt Vonnegut and featured in Dan Wakefield's book Going All The Way). Its neon sign depicts the first four notes of "How Dry I Am." (Yep, those sight-reading skills from grade school have come in handy through the years; thanks, Mr. S!)
Schedules at the Cleveland Clinic are built under the assumption that all will be well. In this case, I was thrown way out of whack, so I was 45 minutes late to my bone scan, didn't get lunch until 2:00, and didn't get to see Dr. G until 2:45. By being late to my bone scan I probably disrupted all subsequent appointments - not my fault, not the CT folks' fault, but the nuclear med techs were definitely unhappy about it. Every bone scan takes a minimum of 20 minutes and can take much longer depending on requested details and the radiologist's speed at reading them. So one wrinkle in the day's fabric begets another, and another ...
There was a bit of growth in the lung tumor but I still qualify as "stable" for the clinical trial. Hence, we go forward with it for as long as we can. Onward for the next six weeks!
An aside: I lived in Indianapolis for a number of years in the vicinity of 52nd and College. I was just up the street from the home of Frances Farmer, and around the corner from the fabulous Red Key Tavern (haunt of Kurt Vonnegut and featured in Dan Wakefield's book Going All The Way). Its neon sign depicts the first four notes of "How Dry I Am." (Yep, those sight-reading skills from grade school have come in handy through the years; thanks, Mr. S!)
Labels: appointment results, clinical trial, life in general
posted by rcclive at
11:29 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home