It feels like Saturday
...but it's not. It's Thursday. This morning I went to the medical imaging place and had a CT of my abdomen. I was relatively calm and happy they didn't take my vitals. I didn't have to wait long before they called my name. I went into a room where a women inserted an IV into my left arm. No one ever has a difficult time finding my veins. She tool me into the room with the CT machine and the technician hooked my IV up to the machine, which initially pushed through some saline or water. I can't remember what she said. I just replied, "ok". Laying on my back, my arms above my head, a computerized voice telling me to hold my breathe as it took the images. First with out contrast and then with contrast, through the IV. That felt weird. First in the back of my throat, then slowly down my body, ending with a weird sensation just under my balls. It didn't last long. And in a matter of minutes I was done. The technician took out the IV, I went to the bathroom, got in my car, got a smoothie on the way home and received the results in a few hours.
I wasn't worried. Maybe I should have been, but I wasn't. Wouldn't I have other symptoms if something was really wrong? Only if it was too late. I was thinking about pancreatic cancer. It killed my dad and maybe it could kill me too. I was also thinking about kidney stones. I had some experience there, but not for decades at this point. Maybe the blood in my urine was from passing a small stone. Blood in my urine. Hematuria. What could it have been?
The cytoscopy was not fun, but also not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. And I got to watch the whole thing, which was interesting. The most uncomfortable bit was when he pushed the scope through my bladder muscle. It's the one that holds your pee back when your bladder is full. It looked like a butthole. It was so uncomfortable as he was doing that, I don't even remember seeing my bladder. I don't remember what he said, but the gist of it was that everything looked ok. I had a slightly enlarged prostate, but nothing to worry about at this point.
The results were... boring. Good boring. Of particular interest was the lack of kidney stones, which I was concerned about. They did see some spots on my liver. I'm not sure what they mean, but it's likely something benign that we will just keep an eye on. It did note a thickening of my bladder, which I've come to understand is probably related to my enlarged prostate.
Aging sucks. Jesus.