Thursday 26th - Boney

Today was my bone scan. I met D at Roma St bus station (platform 1, escalator 2) and we went up to the hospital together for the first part of my bone scan. The bone scan is to check if the cancer has progressed at all to my bones. We haven't been given any indication that this may be the case, but I think it's a routine pre-chemo procedure. I hope so!

I had the same guy do the needle, but my veins must have been behaving themselves today because he got it in all right. After that, D and I went back to the city, where we had a lovely breakfast/brunch... perhaps lunch by that stage as it would have been close on midday. We wandered through Myer to have a look at computers (D) and hats (me) and to a wig shop just to feel like what it was like in there. We also went to a super-nerdy comic book games shop and then moseyed back up to the hospital for the actual scan.

That involved lying on another narrow bed thing (they should really invent lumbar support rolls for those things) with the tops of my feet taped together, heels apart. My arms were in a kind of blue sack, which kept them at my side but my shoulders hunched forwards a bit, making it not so comfortable to relax or breathe because my head was a bit bent forward.

I had to lie still for 20 minutes or so. That was hard. You know when you have to lie still and you want to twitch your toe or scratch your ear...? But I managed to do it satisfactorily, or at least, they didn't ask me to repeat the exercise.

The big flat camera thing came very very close to me this time (as I'd been warned). It was so close that I felt that if I tipped my head, my nose would touch it. I kept my eyes closed most of the time because it was just too close. When I opened them after about 10 minutes, I was really surprised to see that I'd moved, well, the bed had moved, away from the doughnut and the camera was photographing my body further down. I hadn't even felt like I was moving at all.

As I was moved outwards, I could see the screen with the photographs being taken. There was a really vivid white spot in my pelvis that had me worried but the assistant explained that it was just the radioactive stuff that they'd given me, which gets expelled through the urine.

I was nicely wrapped up in a blanket the whole time, and D was allowed to stay in the room and keep tapping away on his computer creating his game. It was actually really reassuring to hear the tippety tap of him typing, as we couldn't really talk due to my immobility and the low camera.

Once that was over with, we had another photo session, this time with my elbows up. That only took about 5 minutes, so wasn't too bad at all. We came home by bus. Had contemplated walking but the sun was quite low and hot by then so decided bus was best. Stopped off for a spot of supermarket shopping on the way home and then both of us talked to Mum on skype to catch up. I'll hopefully talk to Dad tomorrow morning before we go in. D offered to come with us tomorrow, which was nice. I think we'll just go on our own for this time. There will be plenty of other times.