freak out

Bill sat at the cubicle in the Christiana Care Imaging Wednesday afternoon filling out paperwork for a CT scan he hadn’t planned on almost two year to the day from when his Lymphoma had been discovered.

He filled out the forms; initialed this, signed that and a radiology tech came by and gave him a banana barium smoothie.

“Drink this and come back at 3:15,” she said.

“Wait this is banana,” he said. “Where’s the Berry flavored?”

“You must be from the cancer center. We’re the redheaded stepchildren. All you get is banana here.”

Bill chugged the banana radioactive concoction like a frat slamming a beer at closing time.

“I’ve never seen anyone drink it that fast,” radiological tech said.

“This ain’t my first rodeo.”

“Okay. See you a 3:15.”

He turned back to forms and a sort of terrifying déjà vu took hold.

“Fuck, this is exactly how it all started last time,” he thought.

For the past three days Bill had experienced blood in his stools and it freaked him out.

“It wasn’t the kind of bright red blood from an external hemorrhoid,” he told his doc at the 1245 appointment. “It was more of a purplish burgundy color.” That got her attention and she scheduled a CT scan “Stat.”

So there he was back at the scene of the crime.

“See you at 3:15,” the tech said.

Bill wandered off, drove home, and all the time thinking, “Not again, oh Jesus Please not again.”

He went home, walked his pack of petulant pups, and went back to the hospital.

Unlike so many scans he had throughout his cancer trek, this one was easy and fast – less than ten minutes.

“The doctor will call you in a little while,” the tech said.

Bill sat his kitchen table with his MacBook open trying to write something about it all, but he just couldn’t. It was also eerily similar t all the appointments he had blogged about over the past year.

Bring, bring, bring

“Normal,” the doc said.

“Thank God!”

“Keep an eye on this blood thing, if it comes back go see you colon doc, but there was nothing on your scan except you only have half a colon, but we knew that.