First up, i was weighed and measured, have to say i was a little gutted at my weight but anyway. I was escorted to the scanning room where i was met by a very lovely older gentlemen named Lynn, who i buttered up by calling him McSteamy from Grey's Anatomy (for the record he looked nothing like him)!!
I laid down on a very narrow couch, while McSteamy found a vein in my left arm, in which to inject the radioactive tracer so that my kidneys could be seen by the imager. At this point he also administered another injection of a mild radioactive substance which would take longer to work and would eventually be used to assess the rate of clearance from my blood. More on that later.
Whilst laying on the couch, I could see a black and white monitor which was showing images of my kidneys, almost like an X-ray. I was relieved to see that i did in fact have TWO kidneys!! Great start!!
The Images started with 2 very white kidney shaped blobs and a smaller white blob at the bottom of the screen, my bladder. In the 25 minutes or so that i lay there, I watched my kidneys turn from bright white to grey grainy blobs as they filtered out the tracer. My bladder got whiter & whiter and larger & larger, it was really quite cool to watch but I was so glad when my time was up as i was desperate for a wee!!
Once I had gone to the little girls room, i had to get back onto the couch for a quick 1 minute image. When they had checked that they had the images and other information they needed, i was free to leave the unit. I was instructed to return to the unit in 2 hours for the first of 4 blood samples they would take.
I bummed around the hospital with my friend for a couple hours, took full advantage of the hospital restaurant's £2.50 5-piece breakfast - BARGAIN!! Then we headed back to the unit, the same odd lady beckoned me into a consultation room and explained that i would have a cannula put into my right arm (opposite arm to which the tracer had been administered earlier).
This next part is not for the squeamish but is also not typical of what to expect i can assure you!! She put the tourniquet around my arm, found the vein and proceeded to put the cannula in my vein. Now, I'm not particularly squeamish but i don't like to watch them inserting things into my arms, so I looked away but I could feel her struggling to get it in, she then began shouting for her colleague, in walked McSteamy, she'd messed up and apparently gone in at the wrong angle, so McSteamy took over, at this point I looked down at my arm to see what was going on..... MISTAKE!!! As i looked down I saw blood spurt from my arm, which McSteamy quickly dealt with, i watched him draw the blood sample and instantly felt light-headed and the colour drained from my face. I was told to take a minute and was given some water, which made me feel much better. The feeling only lasted a minute and has never happened to me before and was all dealt with very quickly.
The cannula was left in my arm, I was bandaged up and told return in an hour when they'd take another blood sample.
This was repeated half an hour later and then again another half an hour after that. Once all 4 blood samples had been taken the cannula was removed, I was patched up and free to go home. I should get my results in about a week to 10 days.
It's a fairly long day to spend at the hospital 4 and half hours all in all, and a fair bit of waiting around. I'm glad i had a friend with me, otherwise i would have been really bored!
Next test is a renal ultrasound, which will check the size and shape of the kidneys and can exclude any anatomical abnormalities. I also need to have a few more blood tests and then an appointment with the consultant. It's all getting pretty real now, I expected to feel really overwhelmed by the enormity of it all but I'm not, I'm actually pretty relaxed about the whole thing but I'm sure that will all change.
Doing well Naomi, keep on it :)x
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