Last week, Northwestern put my name down for a free room for transplant patients and families. I got a call on Thursday saying the room was available, and had until the next day to claim it, so I flew to Chicago on Friday. Since I got here early, Northwestern was able to reschedule a lot of the testing so I wouldn't just be sitting around for 2 weeks and to give extra time in case additional testing was required.
I was scheduled for blood work, an EKG, a CT enterography and of the sinuses, and a chest x-ray to assess how I was in terms of Crohn's, and to make sure there's nothing wrong before starting the chemo. The blood work was simple enough. For the EKG, they just attached the pads and had me lay on the table for a few minutes. I couldn't even tell anything was happening.
I skipped breakfast because of the CT enterography (only clear liquids 3 hours prior). I drank 2.5 out of the 3 bottles of barium sulfate and they actually went down better than I expected. Before too long, I was on the table. They did the CT of the sinuses first - just hold still for a few seconds while they take the picture - then the enterography. You hold your breath for a few seconds while they take the picture, then injected the contrast and took another. The contrast makes you feel extremely warm throughout your body, and sometimes puts a weird taste in your mouth, but it passes after a minute or two.
For the chest x-ray, you just hold your breath and hug part of the machine for one picture, then put your side against it for the other. It only took about a minute.
I was accidentally scheduled for a vein check which I only would have needed if I was doing the autologous transplant. They would have gone over the catheter they put in the back of your neck to harvest your stem cells, and any other questions that came up. That was all for today.
No comments:
Post a Comment