scan plan

For the last couple of weeks I am getting a date for my next scans. Two scans, a standard-but-sooner MRI and a "spectroscopy" for better detail of the suspect area. Why does it take a couple of weeks to set a date?

The plan was set before Christmas. After the break I phone the scan company. Only to be told, no, we don't even have a spectroscopy scanner. So it's back to the cancer doc.

Back to Charlies, is the plan. A public hospital with all the best scanners.

A week later I ask, how's it going? Scan request is being assessed, I'm told.

Another week and... they are very busy, I'm not likely to get a scan before we go away. I suggest (after a suggestion to me) that I settle for a standard MRI scan.

There's a phone call, it's the company with no scanner, I'm confused. But... I check my emails... There's an email from the oncologist saying, the scan company will phone. The scan company phoned within a minute of the email being sent. Very efficient!

So I'm now booked in for a scan. Just an MRI. On a Tuesday evening with an oncology appointment on Thursday.  I hope that leaves enough time for scan interpretation, I hint. I'll phone to remind them of the need for fast interpretation, replies the oncology secretary. So it's all happening... Well, not "all" but the essential MRI is happening. After a couple of weeks' of confusion.

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So am I worried? Not really. I'm too distracted...

I go to the dentist. The second annual checkup since I told him, No more need for annual checkups :-) This time, he finds decay. I'm booked in for after our NZ trip.

Next day, an entire tooth snaps off. An entire tooth-covered-by-crown, that is. Not a tooth that I will miss, I intend to get it smoothed off and perhaps levelled -- level with the gum. I make an "emergency" appointment with a different dentist: same practice, not my usual.

There's decay, it should come out, he says. Okay, get out the pliers, I reply. Any medical conditions I should be aware of? he asks. So I tell him...

The dentist blanches, backs off, puts down the pliers. Poor bloke, he's upset, not quite sure what to say. Except that pulling a tooth is no longer the obvious solution. It seems that some cancer treatments cause slow-healing in bones; my jaw may take too long to heal. I don't recognise the drugs that he names, mine have been a small but select set, I accept that extraction is no longer advisable.

Back to plan A: he cleans out the tooth (a half root canal, he says), removes decay, fills the space and puts a smooth top on it. At gum level.

It's a short-term fix, I'll be back. Later.

In other dramas: my glasses snap. It's my PC glasses, for reading a screen at a reasonable distance away. (It works well.) The frames are very light plastic... and they snapped. The optician puts the lenses back into a same-model frame, no worries. Except that I now worry that the lightweight frames are too lightweight.

We take the car in for service and are told, one tyre has a nail in it. Near the edge of the tread, where it needs a specialist to fix. No worries, I book in to a tyre specialist for the next day. It's easy but involves me sitting, reading, waiting for an hour. It's a screw. In the tyre, that is (nudge nudge). Now removed and patched.

After the car service the car rides as though the tyres were rocks. I don't know what pressure they set but it is far too hard. After the tyre repair the tyres are less rocky, the ride is a lot smoother. So that's good :-)

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And a few dreams... scraps of dreams, just the bits that I remember:

Dream one: a series of scenes set months or years apart, as political climate changes. There are two important books in the household, discussing important ideas but I don't know what the ideas are. One book is always on display but in a locked bookcase, we are allowed to own it but not read it. The other book is hidden, more and more carefully as the political situation changes. It ends up buried in the garden.

It's all about ideas and how some ideas are acceptable in one political climate but dangerous in others. I can relate that to the here-and-now but have no idea why I would dream about it.

Dream two: there is some sort of armageddon, I think it's an alien invasion. Humans flee, group together, survive. In the new post-invasion society various political views are accepted and trialled. Until the various political groups break apart and start warring against each other.

Humans, disagreements and war, eh. I can see the problem, just not sure why I'd bother to dream about it.

Dream three: our house is computer controlled. I come home, walk to the front door and say, Hello House, let me in. In a deep and scary voice the house replies, No.

What, me worried by autonomous technology? Oh yes, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Luddite.

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Back to the week of teeth, glasses, tyre drama: I no longer worry about the results of the next scan. At least, I no longer worry excessively.

Yes, I'm a bit tense. Need to distract myself with books and computers.  But no worse than for previous scans -- despite starting from a position of, there *is* a blotch on my brain. Why should I worry about a brain blotch -- there is so much other drama that a blotch is just... yet another drama.

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Interesting aside: I can worry about dying but not about being dead. Being dead is -- in my (lack of) belief just... nothing. Dead equals non-existence equals not there to worry. I worry about the dying process but accept that, when it's done, I will no longer be worrying. (As I may have said before: if I'm wrong I'll chase up Houdini and tell him how to phone home.)

What I do worry about often hits me as I am going to bed. I look at Deb and worry about how she will cope when I am dead. Perhaps my death will affect the world. It will certainly affect Deb.

I worry about it now because -- I will not be worrying about it when I am dead :-)

Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper

...        Agamedes Consulting / Problems ? Solved

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"Don't waste your time looking back on what you have lost. Move on, life is not meant to be travelled backwards."

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Dying for you to read my blog, at https: // notdotdeaddotyet .blogspot. com. au/ :-)