Saturday, May 21, 2005

CT Scan

The night before the scan, I had to drink one of the barium shakes and about half an hour later the reaction I had the first time to the stuff started again. I started feeling nauseated followed by diarrhea and then mild vomiting. The last two only lasted a few hours but the nausea was with me up until that morning when I had to drink the second shake. Within half an hour of drinking that one I had the same response but had to go to get the CT scan so just made due.

When I got there I told them about the reaction I had and then went back for the scan. The radiologist had them give me an injection of Benedryl that was SUPPOSE to practically knock me out in hopes of avoiding the same reactions as last time. They inserted the IV contrast and started injecting it into me and did the scan. The nice thing this time was that I didn't have burning pain so bad I cried from the contrast like last time.

The Benedryl did nothing and by the time I got back home I was starting to feel dizzy, even more nauseous, stomach cramps were starting again, diarrhea, and my chest was tightening up. In other words, ALL the same problems I had with the first scan back in October. I spent the rest of the day just feeling horrible and having to lay around while Sis helped me with Lil Man. :( Towards the afternoon I was having some difficulty breathing along with the chest tightness and had to force alot of deep breaths in. Not enough to scare me but enough to be irritating.

So my body obviously can't tolerate the barium sulfate AND/OR the iv contrast so they will not be using those on me again in the future. *sigh* Leave it to me to be difficult eh? I'm going to have to have Dr. L write up something for me to keep with my copies of my medical records so that when I have my next scan I can just hand it to them and they will take me seriously about not using the barium and contrast.

The scan results should be in on Monday not that I'm too worried about it. I already know what's going on in my neck so I could care less about that one and I'm sure there is most likely no absess on my kidneys or anything either but I'm glad we are going the "better safe than sorry" route just the same.

Tuesday I have my bone scan and I'm a little nervous about that one. They have to inject me with something AGAIN so I'm not crazy about that but I guess I'm also a little scared to see if there are any bone mets at this point. If there aren't any then we will continue trying to find out what is causing all my pain and why it's getting worse.

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