06/03/20

A long day yesterday. I got up at 05:20 so as to finish my breakfast and start my fast by 06:00. After a good deal of "discussion" and Googling of journey times, I persuaded Sue that we should leave by 09:00 rather than her preferred 09:30. In the end we were away at 08:45 reckoning that would get us to the Scanning Centre comfortably by 11:30. The deadline was 11:50, and we actually got there at 11:45. Too close for comfort. It wasn't helped by our taxi driver taking a wrong turn out of Redbridge and heading a few miles up the M11 before getting to a junction and coming back down the other side to where we'd started from. And all in heavy rain that didn't let up all day.

All went fine for the scans, the first one with the radioactive tracer lasting the best part of an hour, the other with a contrast medium injected being little more than ten minutes. The machine was bigger and fancier than the ones I've met in Chelmsford and the central tunnel was wider, so less inclination to claustrophobia than inside an MRI scanner. Also, it was blessedly silent!
On the other hand, their canula insertion technique might be open to criticism - I've got some good bruises on both elbows. The Springfield nurses do it with barely a visible mark. There again, the one look I got at the contrast medium needle suggested it was a lot wider than I'm accustomed to:

Dr. Chowdhury asked for more photos of the mysterious thing on my right wrist/forearm, so I've sent him these. It seems to be healing nicely now.

My heartfelt thanks to Sue, who did all the driving from home to Redbridge and back, as I was advised not to drive on the day of these scans. She also had to hang about all the time I was being dealt with,  and got thoroughly soaked by the rain on Oxford Street. They say there's always two in this disease, and I am lucky indeed to have such a carer helping me through it.