OK, so that was not entirely the plan

Today I've spent the day gearing myself up to have my CT scan just to see if anything new has cropped up in the last few months and (hopefully) see that my tumour has shrunk. Now, as you may well know, I have a real fear of needles and my veins seem to know this and therefore hide well whenever there are rumours that they are likely to come under attack (I have tiny, deep veins which also doesn't help). Anyway, I'd been warned that because of the need to have a contrast dye put through my system, with the amount and rate of this being carefully calculated based on it coming through a vein in my arm, I would most likely need to have a canular rather than them using my ever trusty PICC line. Hummmm

Of course it came to 7pm and time to have a game of hunt the vein!! I warned the poor radiographer that I was a bad patient when it comes to needles and veins so he promptly called for a consultant. Thankfully it was only a couple of minutes wait for him to arrive and we had a go at getting my stupid body to cooperate. In vein it turned out to be!! ;-) apparently to get a reliable image the contrast needs to go in at a specific rate and they couldn't find a vein big enough to support a canular to allow this required rate of infusion! Thankfully I only got stabbed once with a needle before the consultant called quits!! It all means that I have to go back another day to have a canular put in under ultra sound guidance and then attempt another scan!! It all seems a bit of a faff considering I've got a perfectly good line going into my right arm!! Oh well, at least temporarily it seems I will have two lines going in!!

So that was my day - how was everyone else's?

Xxxx