(1) Pee before you leave your hospital room. After, they won't let you, unless you're willing to put up with a bedpan.
(2) You'll be lying on your stomach with your head resting on your hands, which is the only pleasant part of the experience. When the technician sends you repeatedly in and out of the CT scanner, your elbow goes clunk-clunk-clunk as it collides with the tunnel. The radiologist told you not to move. But discreetly inching your elbow away is, according to me, okay.
(3) Try not to shriek when they spray something freezing on your lower back. Yelp quietly if you must.
(4) The worst part is the needle shooting in the painkiller. I'm sure I didn't sound worse than the folks who were ahead of me, whom I could hear from out in the hall.
(5) Once the radiologist starts drilling into your lumbar region, pretend it's not you. Visions of the sadistic dentists in Little Shop of Horrors and Marathon Man may fill your head; by the time they do, however, the procedure will be over.
(6) Now is when you thought you'd get to eat. You won't! You'll lie flat on your back for at least two hours. They prefer four. After two, I begged for food so piteously that they allowed me to sit up and eat. After which--yeah, another two hours. Reading Vanity Fair helped.
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