Nuclear Medicine

As mentioned yesterday, I’m sharing a few “short stories” from my short-lived handwritten journal while I recover from my first chemotherapy treatment. This is one story that always makes me smile. Enjoy!

Nuclear Medicine in the most rebellious area of the hospital.

After getting my brain and torso scanned, I’m wheeled on a stretcher around this sharp corner for my next set of tests. The scenery suddenly changes from stark hospital walls and institutional noises, to a narrow hallway coloured by a shock of turquoise and AC/DC blaring out of a testing room. I can see a guy my age putting things into big metal containers with the nuclear symbol pasted everywhere.

That’s when a shaggy-haired man in a lab coat and jeans saunters up to me. He leans over the stretcher and looks into my eyes, “Welcome to Nuclear Medicine,” he says.

He explains how they are going to take pictures of my heart as I watch another bearded man in a lab coat and jeans walk by. The most beautiful nurse I’ve ever seen wearing pink scrubs smiles at me. Dirty Deeds echoes in the background. Am I still in the same universe?

I’m wheeled into a room for a MUGA test, placed under a giant piece of equipment with a smooth, circular, silver surface that is aimed at my heart and told to lay very still. I start to feel the cool sensation of sensors being stuck to my chest. The nurse dims the lights and tells me to relax. I close my eyes and drift off to the faint sounds of AC/DC in the next room.

I think to myself, “Nuclear Medicine is my kind of place.”

Ten minutes later I wake to the sound of my mother walking into the room.

“I just saw the pictures from the scan and I have good news,” she says.

I perk up quickly out of my groggy relaxed state, remembering I’m not supposed to move.

“You have a heart!” she smirks.

Excellent. Thanks mom.