Picture Day

This morning's usual running start included an extra-special breakfast. The steroid appetizers were taken at odd hours last night, in the wee hours of the morning and the final dose in the morning in order to stave off an unwanted allergic reaction to the contrast dye used to light me up for the CT scanner. Berry-flavored Chalk smoothie (for coating the inner workings) was the entree on order along with a Benadryl chaser (also to minimize allergy opportunities). Nice. Okay... not so much.
Steroids are bad. The first two doses are fine, but the third one brings out the mean. For example, I was extremely cross with the daughters who thoughtfully made themselves a pizza for lunch so I could sleep off the drugs uninterrupted. It's that kind of rationale that was in effect as I sat in the imaging center trying to learn if any of the radiologists available to read the CT were on our insurance despite three previous conversations with assorted administrative people. (Nope. Time to address that unmet out-of-network deductible. Awesome. That set well in the stormy sea of barium-coated belly and steroidal crabbiness.) Fortunately, this is not Mama's first rodeo on steroids, so the recognition of my likely irritability having nothing to do with my perceived antagonists was at least tempering my desire to try out for an episode of the evening news or a mention in a true crime show.
The center could not access the type of port I have, so the nurse tried to find a vein that would play nicely. Except that mine generally prefer to play Hide and Seek. I especially appreciated the different colors of wrapping used for the different holes poked. The bright blue and fuchsia mummy look could come in at any time. I would've been trendy if that had been today. Ah, well.
The whole test took a whopping half hour. I avoided the temptation to walk with my arms stretched out before me making a low moaning/groaning noise in honor of my bandaged arms and hands. That sort of thing never seems to be nearly as amusing to other people as it is in my head. Which is reason enough to keep such thoughts from becoming action.
I drove home, unwrapped my mummy costume, dashed off an e-mail update, and crawled into bed to sleep off the after effects. Preliminary results can be picked up this afternoon, or I can wait until my follow-up with Dr. J on July 7th. I haven't decided whether or not to seize the opportunity to spend the weekend trying to piece together a crazy quilt understanding of the CT report from my own medical knowledge base and the scary stories available on the internet, or if I will just opt for patience and accuracy.