The day I became radioactive....

It wasn't an experiment to see if I could turn into the Hulk or anything. It was just a bone scan.....'just a bone scan'....what a scary set of words. Usually those words are to determine the extent of the spread of a cancer. Praise the Lord that is not what my scan was for. No, my scan was to give my orthopedic doctor a little more detail of the stress fracture in my left tibia....and, more importantly, find out when I can start running again.

I was told to be at the hospital admissions office at 7:30am so i was there a few minutes ahead of time. Shirley admitted me and was a very sweet lady. I was sent to the Radiology department around 7:45am where I sat in a small waiting area by myself for about 20 minutes. The TV was set to CNN and I could only take about 5 minutes of their so called 'reporting'. They spent more time talking about the guy who got Sarah Palin's daughter pregnant than the controversial nominee we now have for Supreme Court Justice. I changed it to ESPN and got a rundown of the current baseball stuff. Someone called my name from around the corner so I got up and met the lady who was going to shoot radioactive juice into my vein. Very nice lady. She explained what she was going to do and that I would only feel the needle. No big...homey has been stuck more times than a pin cushion over the years. What was interesting is the small lead lined box that the syringe was retrieved from. I knew I'd have some radioactive stuff put in there but dagum! Was it so much that it had to be stored in a lead lined box? As she gave me the shot she said i would be radioactive for about 4 hrs and that she prefers to get the scan after 2 hours. I guess my warm glow would be at its peak by that point. :)

After the nuclear juice shot I went back to work for 90 minutes before returning for the actual scan. My lovely bride joined me. The scanning process was interesting. Nothing magnetic like they use for a MRI. Why? Because I was the one emitting the energy! :) I was placed on a table and raised up about 4' off the floor. For a moment I thought I might be a prime candidate for one of those floating person magic tricks. I was told to be perfectly still. A monitor was pulled over near me so i could watch a progress bar on the screen along with a fuzzy rendering of my legs. Three shots were taken from above. Then, I was turned on my side with my legs spread just a little so that both legs showed in the scans. Still not sure why she did both when the orders stated 'left shin'. Anyways, two shots from the side and I was done.

So, I wait until 4:10pm Tuesday, June 2nd. That is my followup with Dr Easom for the results of the scan and the news of how long I must wait before running again.

we'll see.....