The Day of Testing
Dr. G scheduled me to have a new bilateral mammogram (meaning both breasts) with ultrasound, as well as a chest x-ray and bone scan. The Mayo Clinic does all of their blood work and radiology tests in house, so I should get all of my results by tomorrow.
The mammogram was a lot like the first one I had, except more thorough. The technician took 4-5 pictures of each breast. I found it particularly painful because she was trying to smash my arm and chest in the machine such that she would be able to get a view of my lymph nodes. Sometimes the physiology of a large breast can be limiting. I mean, there is just so much mass that the machine can view at once.
The chest x-ray was no big deal. That just took a few minutes.
Finally, I was ready for my bone scan. One of the nurses led me to a room in the radiology dept. where they administer the radioactive dye. The nurse prepared the syringe with the radiation warning signs on it. She tied off my arm and shot the dye in a vein. (Visions from the movie Trainspotting dancing in my head. Don’t ask me why.) I was then led to a different room where a technician asked me to lay on a long thin table. He asked that I lay as still as possible while a machine was lowered within inches of my face. Over the next 30 minutes, the machine inched it’s way down towards my feet, giving the technician an image of my skeleton on his computer screen.
When the scan was complete, I was told to drink as much water as possible so that I could pee out the radioactive dye.
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