Stevenage Stargate
Warming Up
8571/21490
Due to my mystery illness (not a mystery if you’re a paid subscriber on Substack- start paying you coward) I was in hospital first thing to have a CT scan. I’ve had a few of these over the last five years, of course, so it was all in a day’s work for me.
I had a 9.30am appointment and got there a bit early (having parked in Sainsburys for free - don’t forget this life hack people of Stevenage and its environs), but was pinballed round the hospital a bit, moving from one reception to another and then getting my name called because I had to go to another reception.
Before I could even sit down I was called into the scanner room. I don’t think it was even 9.30 yet and there was another group of people there who I seemed to be queue jumping (but it turned out with their permission).
Everything ran smoothly - the staff were absolutely excellent as always, calming and kind and concerned. The young woman putting in my cannula asked me if I was able to lift my arms above my head, as if I was 80. Perhaps she thought I was. Actually because of my tennis injury it was a little bit trickier than usual, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.
The machine told me to breathe in and out. They put in the iodine that can make you feel like you’ve weed yourself (though it never has for me and didn’t today). My throat felt the spreading warmth and then I was done.
I had to sit back in reception to wait to have my cannula removed and I was sitting next to the people who had got there before me. It was a family with a young boy and it became clear it was he who was going into the CT scanner. He was obviously nervous about it, but his parents and grandma had persuaded him that it would be fine. They had let him know that he’d get a present once he’d done this. He now looked happy about it all.
It didn’t seem appropriate to interject, especially as they had got him to the point of smiles and readiness, but I wondered if I should have told him that I had been a bit nervous too, but that it turns out it was an adventure where you go into the future and it’s almost like being in a space ship. Admittedly a space ship where they pin a probe into your arm and pump you full of liquid that might make you feel like you’ve pissed yourself.
Probably best I didn’t get involved. The family had plastered on their happy and positive faces and the boy looked genuinely happy. I caught the older woman’s eye and said “Good luck.... do I get a present too?” and she laughed.
They’d done a fantastic job and the minute they were through the door I teared up at what they were all going through. The boy was maybe ten and though I don’t know why he needed a CT scan, it’s clearly something that you don’t want to happen to your kid. The family were strong and brave and united. Their laughter trumped their fear. What a glorious moment of love.
The next patient came in, a very frail old man, wheeled in a bed.
As before I was a fit looking very young man, that only someone who was insane would question if he was able to lift his arm above his head, in a situation with people with real troubles and I felt very lucky as I continue my tourist excursion into modern medicine. Unless the scan turns up something else, what I have is treatable, though not curable, but it won’t impinge much on my life, nor cause my demise.
The woman who questioned my arm raising ability came to take my cannula out and made rather a meal of it. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to lift my arm above my head after this.
I didn’t pay for parking, so I win, though I did almost get run over on the walk into the hospital which would have put my saving of £3 into some kind of perspective. Also I’d have got a fine for failing to get my car out of Sainsburys in time.
Newsround, unusually about penises
I’ve got one today. Snap!!! Say nowt to no-one. Not worth the confusion, in my experience.
My only exception to this self imposed rule was when I was in the Royal Marsden Sutton Canteen, waiting to go into isolation for 4 days as they pumped radioactive isotope into my blood stream, and I saw a young family , two parents ( they looked drawn and exhausted and my heart went out to them silently), and a group of kids loudly giggling and stuffing their faces with cake and sandwiches and fizzy pop. In the middle of this gaggle (?) of excited kids was one kid who was bald and had a tube into his or her nose. Obviously ill with cancer. I dithered and made my mind up and I went over. To my surprise the parents smiled at me, I turned to the kids and said “can you little shits pipe the fuck down you horrible noisy cunts some of us are ill and the last thing I want is to hear your inane squawking and screams”
So I never did it again. Children’s tears are bad enough but the inconsolable tears of a child with cancer is even more nauseating.
I’m joking I went over and asked the parents if it was ok to give their kid a tenner to buy something for their birthday. The kid was quite surprised but took it and gave the mum and dad a lovely smile. Unforgettable.
I was once waiting for a scan during my cancer treatment, which cured me, and a woman sitting next to a clearly very ill 16 or 17-year-old girl politely but urgently asked if they could please put her IV (sorry, American, like really sorry) now even though her time wasn't soon because she was so dehydrated every minute that passed would make successful insertion harder and more painful. The person said they'd try and I offered my earlier slot, but the US health care system doesn't generally work that way, so she sat. Children suffering needlessly is what turned me from a lifelong atheist to a believer in God the Asshole. Thank you for writing so well and so often and letting us into your life.