26. Medical Machines and Panic Attacks (warning: lots of swearing!)
On Monday, October 18th my world began changing. That’s the day Dr. Wonderful (no-tongue-in-cheek reference because he really is a wonderful physician) told me about the elevated alk phos in my pre-physical labs. By the following Wednesday I learned that the super-de-duper blood work that analyzes alk phos showed the elevation most likely had something to do with my bones. That’s when Dr. Wonderful booked me for a bone scan.
I immediately went into a panic — not because the bone scan might show cancer, or because the person conducting the scan would have to inject radioactive materials into my veins, but rather because I’d have to get into some godforsaken machine.
I’d mentioned in an earlier blog that I avoid medical Googling like the plague, but I could not resist the urge to search images of bone scan machinery. There were pages of images, so I narrowed my search to: bone scan machines used for suspected metastatic breast cancer. “BINGO.” The search narrowed the field to a couple dozen or so contraptions. Looking at each prompted this response, “SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!” That succinct, albeit repetitive, reaction preceded a spike in blood pressure and an abundance of sweat that formed on my brow, upper lip and hands. And when my eyes zoomed to THE scanning machine that looked like a big-ass metal box with a tiny circle and nothing else, my response and physical manifestations skyrocketed, “What the fuck, fuck, fuck!?”
I stared at that THING for several minutes wondering how the hell the medical torturers got the patient into the little hole. “Must be by gunpoint,” I stuttered. Unlike the other machines on the search page, there was no board for the patient to lie upon. “Maybe there’s another way in. Nope. Nope. I don’t see a way in or out and there aren’t any holes punched into the top for air. “What the fuck? Even Donnie and I punched holes into the top of Mason jar lids for the insects we captured. We made sure they had plenty of air to breathe as we starved them to death. Unintentionally, of course.”
I continued my study of the picture with one eye closed, then with two eyes closed, then with two eyes open, then I enlarged the picture, then hit the ‘Go To the Website’ option to read some words about the machine. “What the fuck?” I said again – “Nope, nope, hard pass,” I choked. Then pushed myself to think it through – to come up with a reasonable explanation. “Why is that THING completely enclosed? It looks like an effing washing machine.”
My head and heart automatically went on spin cycle and I almost tossed my cookies — Figgies, of course. When I settled myself enough, I continued my viewing — I. HAD. TO. — otherwise the frontload machine would be the only image stuck in my head for that night’s torture loop.
I called Donna, “Okay, what happens if I don’t get the scan?”
“You’ve been looking at nuclear med scanning machines.”
“Yes.”
“Oh, fuck.”
“That’s what I said — repeatedly.”
She sighed.
“Donna, do you know what kind of machine I’ll be forced into?” She did the whole bullshit thing about it’s not her field of medicine, blah, blah, blah. I groaned really loudly and headed toward the metaphorical ledge — she pulled me back a bit.
“Tell me about the other machines you saw.”
“Okay. Right. Other machines. There’s one that sort of looks like a big-ass donut with a reasonably-sized circumference for a board to move through.”
“Sounds like a CT scan.”
“And there were happy, smiling people lying supine ready for their quick trip. I want that one.”
“I don’t think that’s for nuke med, so what else was there?”
“There were a few that fell somewhere between the device I would absolutely stroke-out in, and the donut shop device I could possibly survive the test in — if there was a dozen honey-dipped waiting at the ejection site.”
“I’ll do some research. You go do something else.”
“What?”
“Anything else. Love you.”
I pushed away from the computer, left my office, and headed downstairs to hang out with my kitchen appliances — friendly machines that held a world of possibilities — none of which included taking me hostage.
I pulled my recipe book from the cupboard, and the necessary ingredients to make Joyce McTigue’s chicken and broccoli casserole. I think it’s her recipe — her name appears at the top of my recipe card, so it must be there for a reason — right? But I don’t actually remember her giving me the recipe, although I remember the casserole she delivered to a funeral gathering once — and it was delicious enough that I could see myself asking for the recipe. Anyway, while I was stirring the cheese sauce for this ‘comfort food’ creation, memories from the early 2000s came out of hiding and banged the hell out of my head.
First, some background information in the form of a blog I wrote a year ago when life was much simpler and medical crises were not terminal — perhaps.
The best gift ever.
When is tinnitus not just ringing and buzzing in your ears? When the sounds are caused by a big-ass acoustic neuroma, that’s when. I’d been experiencing the annoying sounds for several years and complained to my coworkers about them on several occasions. Each of them had to remove their headsets so they could hear my complaints — ah, the source of the “ringing and the buzzing,” we decided. For them, maybe. For me, the sounds were caused by a tumor that had taken root inside my ear canal.
Technically, the acoustic neuroma, also known as a vestibular schwannoma, is a head tumor that begins developing inside the ear. When it grows up, it starts messing with the brain. This type of tumor is slow growing, and stealth as shit. Aside from the tinnitus, I had no other symptoms. No headaches — no dizziness — no facial paralysis or weakness. Until ….…
I thought things might be getting serious when cricket chirps and backing-up-truck sounds joined the ringing and the buzzing. In the early weeks of December, some years ago, the cacophony in my head became unbearable. I made a plan to address the situation as soon as the holiday season was over. When I awoke Christmas morning to silence, I truly thought it was one of those miraculous events — the best gift ever — the plot for a Hallmark movie. Of course, that was before the penny dropped that I was deaf in one ear.
Shortly after the New Year I called for an appointment, “March? You can’t fit me in before then? I’m sort of deaf.” I could have gone elsewhere as the lovely booking secretary kindly reminded me, but I wanted the best ear, nose, and throat doctor, so I took the March appointment.
As soon as I arrived at his office, I was taken for a hearing test, which was really a half-hearing-test, all things considered. The results: “Perfect hearing in one ear, zero hearing in one ear, no mechanical reasons for hearing loss, let’s get an MRI to look for a brain tumor.”
“Yeah. Let’s.”
By the end of that day, I was diagnosed with a big-ass tumor—no hyperbole. Before my husband could say, “Buckle up,” and drive us from the parking lot at the MRI facility, I received a call from my ENT suggesting that I stop by for a visit “On the way home.”
When we arrived, we were greeted by my doctor and a neurosurgeon who already had X-rays of the inside of my head on a lighted board. He didn’t need to say a word, or point a finger in a general direction for me to see IT, and I didn’t need help reading the expression on the stranger’s face to realize that I was in deep shit.
“Your tumor falls into the rare category of acoustic neuromas. As you can see, it is very large and it is compressing the brainstem.”
I needed help with that last part, so he traced the outer edge of the tumor which had nestled itself against the posterior part of the brain responsible for vital life functions like, heartbeat, blood pressure, and breathing.
“This is a life-threatening condition,” the neurosurgeon said.
Even with only one working ear, I heard those words.
That experience was my first big bump against a life and death situation — it was also my first experience with an MRI machine — the contraption that would have been the torture device selected by Big Brother if I’d been a character in George Orwell’s novel, 1984. Having read the book on more than one occasion, I know for certain I would have ended my days in Room 101, facing my greatest fear of being strapped onto a flat board, my head caged into an iron mask, and moved slowly through a big-ass medical torture device.
I generally subscribe to the notion that knowledge is power — the more you know about something the better, so I decided to learn about the damned bone-scanning machine. I called the nuclear med department at the hospital and asked exactly what kind of device they used. I had the image page open on my computer and when I found the one that looked like the one being described by the very understanding person on the other end of the phone line, I thanked her for her time and disconnected from the call — and then I stared at it — and bookmarked the page so I could show Tim, and the girls, and myself, over and over and over again.
Comparatively speaking, the machine used by the nuclear med department to determine if someone had bone boo-boos was NOTHING like the frontload THING or the dreaded MRI machine. Still, it had ready-made features for claustrophobia, so I called Dr. Wonderful’s office and requested a little something-something to help me out.
Thankfully, on the day of my test, it came with a very patient nuclear med tech named Maria, who listened to my concerns, gauged my level of anxiety at 10 on the Happy/Sad Face chart, and did everything in her power to help manage my panic so I wouldn’t amp to a Chernobyl-esque meltdown.
After her assurances that she’d be with me the whole way, I agreed to the test, so Maria pumped some radioactive agent into my veins, sent me off to wait three hours, told me to take my Xanax pill thirty-minutes before my return and reassured me we’d be fine.
“Of course she’ll be fine,” I hissed at Tim during the plutonium surge throughout my body, “she’s not the one getting into the effing machine.”
Mr. Wonderful squeezed my hand, suggested we spend some time outside then grab something to eat from the hospital cafeteria.
I rolled my eyes at the dude, “Is this your idea of a date, cause if it is, it sucks.”
“It’s not all bad. I’m holding your hand and you’re radioactive. That’s commitment. And I’ll let you get the most expensive thing on the cafeteria menu.”
Gotta love him. I do.
I lived through the scan because of the wonders of Xanax — my first ever experience with my new little friend.
Had any of my mental faculties been up and running at full-tilt, I might have read ‘the clues’ Tim said he picked up on when the red light over the scanning-room door went dark signaling the end of the test.
Apparently, I missed the stoic expression Maria had when she left the scanning chamber to get a wheelchair. And the absolute insistence that I sit my ass in it until I got into our car. And the tender hand she placed on my shoulder before he wheeled me away. And the look he said she gave him — the kind someone might give the owner of a beloved pet right before the shaving of the paw, and the hooking up of the ‘nighty-night’ IV.
When this nightmare began, I made Tim promise there’d be no secret-keeping, or sugarcoating, or bottling-up of concerns or suppositions. So, after many quiet minutes on I-290 heading west toward our home, he took hold of my hand and said he expected we’d hear bad news.
“How bad?”
“I think you have bone cancer.” He gave another squeeze. “You mentioned Stage 2 the other night, let’s hope for that.”
If hopes and buts were candies and nuts, we’d all have a very fine Christmas.
Don’t know why that little ditty went through my head as we exited the highway at Hope Avenue.