Monday, December 8, 2008

Bone Scan

Well, there has been progress toward a diagnosis of the thigh pain. It has been a busy few days. Turns out that the request for an MRI was rejected, in favor of doing another bone scan. Apparently the thinking is that since I had a bone scan in June for the same pain, another is desired for purposes of comparison.

So, since I got the approval for the bone scan yesterday, I decided to go to the hospital today, instead of faxing it in, so I'd get an appointment sooner. It was written on the bone scan approval that it should be ASAP. So, I went there today. My time was limited there; I had to be home in a half hour to let my father-in-law & brother-in-law, who came in today from the US, into our house.

I got there, gave in my paperwork, and they said they could do it now, if I could wait a bit. I was taken aback, and said I'm not really ready, the day isn't organized, etc. I asked if there is time tomorrow, the answer was no. On Wed. already I am leaving for the rest of the week & weekend (my niece's Bat Mitzvah; also the reason why in-laws came), so I took the opportunity and did it today. It caused a bit of a tumult trying to get my family-in-law into our house without anyone home, but with help of neighbors & cell phones, we made it happen.

I then called the infectious disease doctor from Ichilov who I saw last June. I wasn't sure if should go ahead with the bone scan, or hold out for an approval for an MRI (he would fight for it if he decided to). He recommended to do it, also for comparitive diagnostic reasons. If it doesn't show the reason for the pain, we'll decide between MRI or CT afterwards.

So, the bone scan is done already. This time they did it in two stages. Usually it is just one stage, just the scan itself of the whole body. This time, since I was returning for the same problem 6 months later, they first did a static scan of just my hip & thigh, with only one minute of the radiation isotopes in my system. It apparently gives a different picture than one gets after the standard several hours after the isotopes injection. So, it took over an hour before that first stage was finished. Then I went home for 3 hours, greeted my FIL & BIL, ate lunch together, greeted the kids when they trotted into the house (another opportunity to tip my hat to D, our carpool angel), then went back to the hospital for the rest of the scan. At that point they did the whole body scan and another specifically on hip/thigh region.

It's over. It's been a bit of a crazy day and I'm a bit dizzy from it all. I'll get results before the end of the week.

In the meantime, I am happy to see family and to have the opportunity to celebrate the simcha (celebration) of my beautiful 12-year-old neice coming of age in Jewish life. Mazal Tov! May we all enjoy many smachot ("simcha" in plural).

3 comments :

  1. Nice going! That's a great accomplishment for one day. Now hopefully you can relax and enjoy the company of family for the rest of the week and Shabbat. Just relax and let it flow.

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  2. What a great decision that was to take the paperwork into the hospital. I'm so glad things worked out so well for you today. Enjoy your company and celebration.

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  3. Just checking back to see if you've heard any results of your bone scan.

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