I had never had a CT scan before this thing happened, and now I have had too many to count. I have had scans at many different places, and they all do something slightly different. It is wild to me that even the pre-CT scan drinking procedure is not standardized, even when you are in the same hospital system. 99 percent of my scans have happened at a University of Rochester-affiliated location, and none of those places have done the scan exactly the same way. The school I teach at is part of a network of schools that share curriculum. If you went into a first-grade classroom at any of those schools, they would be teaching the same thing on the same day (give or take different school calendars), yet a hospital system doesn’t make its many affiliates do simple procedures the same way. Minor quibble to be sure, but given how many CT scans I have had in the past 18 months, when I go to a new site, it is always a fun game to see what twist this place will put on the CT scan process.
I never thought I would be a person who had a favorite spot for a CT scan, but the U of R Imaging at East River Road is my go-to location for getting a scan. Before we get to my bad experiences, I need to let you know why this place is where I try to get all my scans scheduled. Since I will be getting scans every three months for the next few years, it is important to know what you like. Let’s start with the pre-scan drink. Overall, this drink doesn’t taste good no matter what; one place I went to added a flavoring, and that helped, but not enough to make up for the shortfalls in other areas that place had (we will get to that). At East River Road, it tastes as close to nothing as it can get, so it goes down a lot easier than at a few other places I have been. The other thing I like about this place is that while you spend an hour sucking down a jug of barium sulfate, you get your own room to hang out and watch TV. The chair is the same as the one in any hospital room, so it’s relatively comfortable. You also get to put on a pair of scrub pants (or at least I do, because I am getting an abdominal scan), and they are very comfy. The scan is the same as it is everywhere else, but the pre-scan stuff is what makes all the difference. Once the contrast dye is injected, they tell you the same thing every time-it’s going to feel like you are peeing yourself. That is the most truthful thing any medical professional told me in this whole journey. You get this warm feeling all through your body, and if you hadn’t heard the warning, you might think you were peeing yourself.
Now that I've talked about what I like in my CT scan, let’s get to my bad experiences. First, the drink. It can taste like nothing, or like garbage. The more like water it is, the better it tends to taste. The worst is when you get what is equivalent to a chalky milkshake. The flavoring doesn't make these any tastier. The most recent one I had contained some coffee flavoring, and given my dislike of coffee, that flavoring did me no favors. In this case, I was given a small plastic cup and had to pour from one of two other containers and drink that. When I got my very first scan, it was on the watery side, but tasted like chalk. I know I keep using that analogy and it would be a sign of shitty writing, but in this case, it’s the most accurate word. There can be a bit of grit in the drink. With the others, you get what is essentially a water bottle full of the stuff. It has volume markings on the outside, and you get told to drink it over the course of one hour. Of all the differences between the different sites, this was the most confounding as to why it was not standardized. The scan is exactly the same every time, so why is the prep different? One would think that if you wanted consistent results, everything would be the same. To connect it to my chosen field, standardized tests are all over education. In theory, they test what the students know and don’t know-I have a whole rant on why those tests aren’t reliable for every student, especially the ones I work with.
The biggest difference between the different locations is where you spend the hour you need to wait for the barium sulfate to do its thing. Ideally, as I have said, it is in a semi-comfortable chair, alone in a room with a TV. A few times I have been made to my chalky milkshake/water in a communal room. Those were very odd experiences. Here I am just hanging out in this open space as people walk by, and I am just hanging out there for an hour. The first time this happened, I was alone, but the room was right by a high-traffic door, so like every thirty seconds someone else got to see me just chillin watching whatever was on the TV. The second time was the most recent, and there was someone else in there with me for the first 20 minutes or so. Nothing screams awkward like sitting there in silence as I prepped for my scan with some random woman who was just waiting for someone to be done with their scan. Apparently, at places that don’t give you a private room, you also don’t get scrubs. They take you back in your street clothes and just have you pull down your pants a bit (if you are getting an abdominal scan), and then they do the scan. Again, a very weird and awkward experience as you try to shimmy your pants down while lying on your back covered by a blanket. The scrubs just make things sooooo much easier.
On the whole, my scan experiences have been good. Except for one and I have been waiting over 1000 words to talk about it. This was my third or fourth scan, and I was at another new place-this was before I had settled on my favorite place. The scan was scheduled for 1:30, I think. For these scans, you are supposed to be there an hour before so that you can have your drink. Here is the thing: the entire front office staff goes on break between 12 and 1. So I was sitting there with around 10 other people waiting for them to come back so we could get signed in. Not only did I get there early for no reason apparently, but the office stand was late getting back from lunch. When they finally returned from their lunch break and I got signed in, I was taken back to start the process. I was taken to a closet with gym lockers and a bench to sit on. I was told to put on a pair of scrubs and (I assumed) they would be back to get me for the blood draw. I put my scrubs on and waited. About five minutes later, the nurse asked me if I needed help. She has been standing there waiting for me to come out. Then I went for the blood draw, and since I had seen what a loosey-goosey operation they were running, I didn’t tell them I had a port they could use for the blood draw/contrast dye. I didn’t trust them to do it properly, so I just had them stick me in the arm. Then it was back to the closet to have my drink for 30 minutes. The scan went off without a hitch; it was the only part of that experience that did. I complained to my dad, an employee of the U of R, about how much that sucked. This was also the scan where I decided that I would only go to East River Road for my future scans.
