Day 24 brought the big one — the CTA scan of the heart and arteries. This is the test that takes a detailed look at the actual plumbing: the coronary arteries, blood flow, and any blockages or buildup that might be lurking. Here's how the day went, from prep to the Big Donut Machine and everything in between.
Personal Prep
The instructions for this test were "no caffeine after 3pm the day before, no food after 7am the day of, and hydrate with at least 32oz of water the morning of." Easy enough. I haven't been drinking any Pepsi or V8 Energy drinks at all, and I haven't had an Advocare Spark in 3 days. So, for at least 3 days I've had zero caffeine. Skip breakfast? No problem, I typically don't eat breakfast. Hydrate? Oh, believe me, I'm hydrating every day.
Arrival
I arrived early, hit the can, checked in, and headed to the waiting area. I was scooped out of the waiting area within 10 minutes, and on my way to a scary part of the hospital. At first, I was a little freaked out. The department names hanging from the ceiling overhead were long, complicated, and scary, and all relating to cardiology. And there were not many people at all, almost none. It was clean. If it wasn't clean, it would have felt like entering a part of a hospital you're not supposed to be in, or don't WANT to be in, like Jacob's Ladder.
Prep Room
My destination was the Prep/Post area, which, again... there were multiple little rooms, and the one I went to did not look friendly. It was clean. It was "modern." But it consisted of a single mini-wheelchair-type-thing, with a table on one side and some bio monitoring equipment on the other. It was small, sparse, and undecorated. It looked like somewhere someone might walk into alive and get wheeled out of in some other condition than fully alive. They hooked me up to the monitoring equipment and installed another IV in my arm. We talked for a bit while they made sure my vitals were good, and in another very short period of time a really cool guy was taking me on my first wheelchair ride ever to the "big donut machine."
The Big Donut Machine
Of note, I was in a FANTASTIC mood when I got to the Big Donut Room. Richard and I talked and laughed for the whole ride. I had a permanent smile on my face and waved at everybody I saw, even if it caused them to stop looking at their phone for a moment. I rolled into the Big Donut Room with a smile holding up 2 peace signs saying, "Good morning fellas, I have ARRIVED!" No, there were no drugs involved at this point. I just had a blast getting pushed around a hospital in a wheelchair. Everyone should do it at least once in their life.
Two big guys that look like they should be running security at a NY night club, or active-duty bodyguards for Beyonce, greeted me when I rolled into the room. The room wasn't much bigger than the machine, actually, with a small separate office to the right. The office caught my eye — the whole place was like a dark, quiet cave, and the office looked like the cave dweller's little private hideaway. I think every inch of it was covered with some kind of art, photograph, sign... to me it made it seem like this little cave was their home, and a good place, not a bad place.
The Big Donut machine was not scary at all. My first impression of it was "Whoa, that's bad ass." Of all the rooms I've been in over the last 3 weeks, this one felt the most like a sci-fi movie, like a small med bay on a Starfleet ship. As I mentioned before, the room overall was very dimly lit, so all the little lights and screens on the machine and around the room gave the place a very cool vibe. I liked it. I laid down on the table flat on my back, and the guys stuck the sensors for the EKG machine to my body, followed by a blood pressure cuff on my arm. Once I was all hooked up and everything had been tested and vitals cleared, I opened my mouth to let someone drop a single tablet of nitro glycerin under my tongue to lower my heart rate even further. This was not unique to me or uncommon.
The machine went through a few test runs. It has cute little icons that light up, and a friendly female voice, that tell you when to breathe and when to hold your breath. We went through that a few times and then a voice from above said "OK, we're going to inject the [whatever] now and you're going to get that sudden hot flash we talked about." The machine made a couple more passes for images, and then I was sliding out of the machine. The hot flash never really came, but for a moment it did kind of feel like I was going to relieve myself in my pants, #1 AND #2. But that moment passed quickly without disaster.
I was clear to get back in the wheelchair for another ride back to the Prep/Post room I started in, after the arm cuff was removed and all the electrodes for the EKG ripped off my body. I still had a nitro glycerin pill hanging out under my tongue — it had not dissolved. They said "oh, just leave it there, it will dissolve."
The pill still had not dissolved by the time we got back to Prep/Post, so they had me spit it out in a trashcan. Another 15 minutes or so of watching my vitals and I was cleared to leave. I asked if I could get a wheelchair ride back to the lobby, or even maybe my parking spot, but the answer was "We think you're OK to walk, Mr. Sparks." LOL. Darn the bad luck!
Test Results in the Modern Medical Era
Our medical group here has some pretty cool software applications for patients to track and monitor their health, and to interact with their physicians and care teams. One of the benefits of this is rapid access to test results. You can opt to not get test results before your doctor has seen them, well, because you never know what it's going to say or how it's going to say it, and for some people it's better to wait until the doctor relays the test results to you in an understandable and human way.
I'm not that person. No matter how hard I try not to look at them before the doctor calls, I look at them. And, in some cases I search for the terms used so I can better understand what's being said. Good or bad, this is how I roll.
Now that we're clear on that, let's muddy the picture: I'm also not in a big hurry to talk to my doctor (or nurse practitioner, or medical assistant, or whatever) about my test results today. Of course I want to know what the test results are, and I want to know what the next steps are. And I don't. So, for today, the day of the test, I'd rather try to not think about it than listen to a doctor get into it with me about my heart. What I really want to do is get under a blanket on the couch, with a dog, a pizza, a 2 liter bottle of Pepsi, and a queue of kick-ass old movies to get me through the night. Let's talk life and death tomorrow.
Closing
Yet another nurse practitioner called to discuss the CT scan results late in the afternoon. I just didn't want to talk about it. So, I'm going to let the weekend pass and come back to this next week.
Much 💙 from the shop!
This blog series documents a personal health journey and is shared for informational and storytelling purposes only. Nothing written here constitutes medical advice. Always consult your physician or qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Do not disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of something you have read here.
