A moment of truth

The scan last week went ok, I guess. It was a little more exciting than normal, but ended up all right. Brittney was able to accompany me, so that was great. I had to arrive for the scan fasting, and so hadn't eaten anything for breakfast. Then they make you drink two huge glasses of water, and by the end of those I was shivering pretty bad. Then I went in for the scan itself. Everything was going fine at first, I was laying on the bed-thingy and moving in and out of the scanner. Then they said that they were injecting the contrast dye stuff into my IV. At that point the IV site starting hurting weird. I put up with it for a second or two and then looked over at my inner elbow, where the IV was. My arm had a slight bulge where the IV went in. By this time the nurses had come out to check on me. I guess my IV had come slightly out, so that when the injection happened, it went into my tissue instead of into my blood. The nurses said that not very much had gotten in though, before it got shut off. I guess they put sensor thing on your arm that detects this. So, they took out what remained of that IV and then gave me another one in the other arm. I had been trying to tough it out through the scan, but by now was shivering again. The nurses were great and wrapped me all up in warmed blankets while the second IV was started. It sadly took two tries. Finally it was in and they finished the scan. Then the IV was taken out and I left. They gave me an ice pack for the bulge in my arm and told me to massage it a bit and that it should go away. It was pretty weird, but by the end of the next day seemed pretty much back to normal. So that was exciting.

Now comes the day we have been waiting for. Tomorrow afternoon we meet with the doctor to discuss the scan results. It has been kind of odd to have this coming. The best way that I have thought of to describe it is like this: It is like being on a hike up a big mountain. You have never hiked the trail before, so you don't really know how long it will be, but it is a big mountain. The trail winds through some trees and for a while it is hard to tell how far you have come or how much further is left. At some point, several hours into the hike, you see a ridge up ahead, out in the clear. You can't see beyond this ridge, and so you have a lot of anticipation as you approach it. Is this the summit? Will you be done when you get there? Will the top of the mountain be in sight? Or will this be a false alarm, simply allowing you to see how much more of the mountain there is left to be climbed? Either way, the ridge is a major checkpoint, and getting there will answer some questions and leave affected emotions.

That is kind of how I feel. Tomorrow is a moment of truth. We get to find out something about how far we have made it and how far we have left to go. Either way, it is nice to know that I have such an amazing support group out there. We will let you all know whatever we find out tomorrow.