Thyroid uptake and scan

Last Thursday and Friday I had my thyroid testing. Thursday morning I reported to UNMC bright and early to partake of my radioactive iodine. Really I fretted over nothing. It was all contained in a nice little capsule, so no taste, no smell, no gagging- it went down nice and easy with no (noticeable) side effects. I came back four hours later and did an uptake. Where this nifty little cylindrical device was moved and placed over my thigh and neck for four minutes each time to read how much radioactive iodine I had absorbed so far.

Friday morning I went back to the hospital bright and early, did another uptake, with that machine again, and then I went and did my scan. Which they (they being two young twenty something techs) told me consisted of a camera being positioned by my neck to take a series of pictures. Three pictures lasting ten minutes each...so a total of thirty minutes.

They probably asked me four times if I was claustrophobic. Each time I answered "no". But I haven't exactly had a reason to be. And sitting in the room where the "scan" was going to be taken....I couldn't imagine why in the world they'd keep asking me that. I didn't see anything. Nothing to warrant being claustrophobic over. I mean, there was seriously nothing in this room that I could see except a long gurney in the center of the room. So I figured the camera would be small in size too. It all looked pretty harmless...and spacious. No need to feel trapped in here.

Mmmm hmmmm.

I was wrong.

That camera was not small. Not small AT ALL!

Oh yeah, and thinking there was no reason to feel trapped....wrong on that too!! Definitely wrong!

That room was very deceiving!

I laid down on the gurney, or whatever that long skinny bed was called. And all of a sudden the gurney starts to move up towards the ceiling, and then next thing I know the ceiling starts to move..."AHHH! What the crap is that!" I shriek very loudly to myself. It was then I understood their reasons for asking me if I was claustrophobic.


That massive moving thing on the ceiling heading straight for me would be the "camera". Yeah, that ain't no camera I've ever seen before...and I know cameras!

I tried finding a picture of this "camera" on line, but nothing matched. So I drew a picture for my own records.

That would be me, lying there helplessly, totally trapped. Unexpectedly surrounded.

How I didn't see that beast of a machine suspended from the ceiling, I don't know. But the tech had to position that thing an inch away from my neck. At one point a doctor came in, put her hand on my neck, and said the machine needed to be a knuckles worth of distance away.

It was then that I started contemplating my escape.

My life hung in the balance of this twenty something year old tech, slowly positioning this multi-ton piece of metal a mere knuckle away from my neck. And all I could do when he moved it ever closer and closer....was silently scream to myself, "too close too close too close.....don't crush my neck, don't crush my neck!!!! STOOOPPPPPPP!!!!!!! AHHHHHHH!!!!!"

Thank goodness he stopped each time before crushing my neck because I determined that at the slightest touch of flesh I could propel myself backwards off the gurney to safety. Backwards was my only way out seen as how I was surrounded on every other side. Luckily it never came to that. :~)

But if I thought being crushed to death was going to be my only worry...it only took closing my eyes to realize it wasn't.

Thanks to the gurney moving up and down, every time I closed my eyes it felt like I was moving. Or rather falling. That same feeling you get right after you get off an elevator, you still feel like you're movin' a little. It was like that. So I would close my eyes, and feel like I was falling, and then have to open my eyes to try and regain my barrings and not be able to focus because a big ole piece of metal was an inch away from my eyes.

I had to continuously tell myself, "stop freaking out, you're not moving. See, not moving. Laying still. Find something, anywhere to focus on, to get your barrings. It's gonna be okay. Ah ah ah, stop freaking. It'll all be over soon."

And then, yeah, that's right, there's more....on top of having my equilibrium all jacked up, and being an inch away from being pulverized...I.could.not.move. At all.

That thing was so close to my head it made moving, turning, or lifting my head and chest impossible. And that may not seem like a big deal...but when you have to lie PER.FECT.LY still for thirty minutes, thir.ty minutes, with some big ole thing in your face...it's hard. And freaky. And your head will start to iche for no reason. But you can't scratch it. And your neck will start to cramp, but you can't move it. And you'll feel a piece of fuzz on your nose but can't brush it away. So it's left to torment you.

Thirty minutes of complete stillness, feeling like you're falling, fearing your neck may be crushed, and praying relentlessly it won't be.

Needless to say I felt a great sense of accomplishment when it was over. I survived my testing without whiggin' out.

(At least publicly. I'm pretty sure I was only screaming in my head....no one in the room told me otherwise. :~) )
So that constitutes a triumphant pat on the back. A strut in my walk. A "Yippe Jesus" for helping me not to whig. And a deep desire to never have to do that again. Ever. Ever ever.
So glad that parts over.