Well, I’ve now experienced a CT scan, so whenever I hear “Get a stat head CT” on House, I’ll know that the patient (who won’t turn out to have lupus, either) is about to slide in and out of a huge donut shaped machine while a mechanical male voice intones “Breathe in… hold your breath…[scan]… breathe normally” several times.

My particular CT scan required two kinds of contrast: the “Berry Smoothie” barium contrast (with a pretty picture of a cascade of different kinds of berries next to an appetizing picture of a GI tract on the label) once at night and twice in the morning, and then an IV of contrast during the scan. And boy oh boy is that IV contrast a weird experience. The tech said, “You’ll start with a metalic taste at the back of your throat. Then a hot feeling around your mouth that’ll move down your body. When it gets to your abdomen, you’ll feel like you’re peeing your pants. You aren’t. Don’t worry.” I’LL FEEL LIKE WHAT???

And she was right.

I was also a little disconcerted to have the only thing in my field of vision be labeled “Laser guider – do not stare into the beam.” So I just kept my eyes closed most of the time.

Luckily, I happened to schedule my scan for the day the radiologist comes to the clinic. And luckily the radiologist got my results to my doctor quickly. And luckily, my doctor had time to call me right away, so I only had to wait about 5 hours to hear that I don’t have tumors on my adrenal glands, or any other visible abnormalities in that area.

I’m sure I’ll be able to feel happy about that soon, but for now I’m just alternately numb and weepy. And I’m so very tired of tests. And I’m tired in general. And they still don’t know why my labs are off. But I don’t have tumors on my adrenal glands, which is a very, very good thing.