Of CT Scans and Kings....

But for now, a short FAQ, with maybe a rant or two attached. But first, the FAQ index.

A: Well, I was kind of shaken up after getting the biopsy back and had a good cry. However, I was on break at my dead-end job at a call center when I got the biopsy back, so I think it was more that I hated my job and was already depressed over that, and this just pushed me over. A lot of my depression late December/early January had nothing at all to do with the cancer.

As proof of that, I offer my reaction when my doctor first phoned me and told me I needed to get some bloodwork done and get to a surgeon within a few days: Mild nervousness. Nothing more.

While I'll recount this story in detail later, I'll mention now that I managed to get out of an ultrasound technician (who was - due to the fact that he's not allowed to - understandably reluctant to say) that the lump on my testicle was solid, which he had previously said was likely a tumor. Even then, with this first piece of evidence that I had cancer, I was perfectly calm.

You see, there's nothing I could do about it. I had absolutely no control over the situation, and therefore didn't worry about it much. Something was happening, and all I could do was wait. So I did. Some people thought I was being downright stoic about things, but I wasn't. I was worried, I was even scared, but sitting around crying wouldn't make the tumor smaller, so I felt it was a waste of time. I don't like wasting my time, so I didn't cry.

It's situations where I have a bit of control (or at least think I do) and need to exercise it carefully that I get panicy.

Blood collection is busy, so I decide to skip that for the time being. I register for my x-ray at 8:10 but find out it's only open at 8:30*. Oh, so that's why they wrote 8:30 on the appointment form. I thought I had to get it done by then. I wait around for 20 minutes, but since only one person registered ahead of me I'm done fairly soon after they start. And since about five people came in after me, perhaps it was all for the best.

(*Registration for the diagnostic imaging department is centralized, and thus opens when the earliest section does, I think it's around 7:00.)

The technician is a young woman. Instead of having me do the fashion model pose, she has me put my hands on handles on the sides of the machine. With my arm and torso position, it was kind of like riding a motorcycle, except the motorcycle has a handlebar basket that contains a small washing machine. A washing machine that's running.

Apparently the woman is expecting a busy day. She didn't even wait for the image to render, she came right back out and got me to hold on to the top bar in the trapeze-launch style position used for the side shot. Then she went back, waited a second, and then (judging by her reaction) the first image popped up. She then told me to do the whole deep breath thing and took the second shot right away. Then I got to watch her endure the whole render wait. Believe me, if you've used a dialup modem on your Internet connection, you know the look she had.

But it turned out okay and I left. On my way back around, I peeked through the hall access to her lead-glass niche. I saw she was already doing the same for a woman - the woman was holding on to the overhead bar, but the image that popped up as I passed by was a front view. I'm no doctor, but it looked very normal-looking. But I am a computer person and what looked less normal was that the rendering program has a font and GUI design disturbingly close to a DOS EDIT window.

Back waiting for bloodwork, and boy did I wait. Several people who arrived after me were called in before I was. Perhaps they were scheduled, but the small labor crisis that ensued after 10 minutes wasn't. (No idea about the details, but it mostly involved people phoning other people and saying things in imposing yet hushed tones.)

After all that passed, finally the woman comes out, looks directly at me, and says "Leonard..." I shift my weight forward.

"... Arsenault." I shift my weight backwards as a young man, seemingly college age, leaped out of the far corner. I hadn't even noticed him there before, and I don't think the woman taking blood did either. And it's not like it's a large waiting room.

Someone else comes in and sits down. A register-desk person comes in about two minutes later and gets him - he's not for the clinic blood collection, he came up here after registering instead of going back to the normal waiting room to wait for his name to be called. Well, now I don't feel as silly for missing the "place requisition form face-down into tray" sign, since he missed that and several "Clinic patients only." signs as well.

Another few minutes and it's my turn, finally. There's the standard ritual where she asks me my birthdate (presumably to remove chances of accidental record mixup - it's obviously nothing complex or for security since she finished the year for me). Unlike other technicians, though, she followed the ritual with "I have a son your age!"

I said "Oh, that's nice!" and was then lost for words. I remember my mom told me about one time when she was talking to a bloodwork technician about his son, but that was because his son was my age. Doesn't seem right when you're not both talking about your kids. (Oh, and years later my mom got blood taken by the same guy, and recognized him. She asked how his son was. He was at first shocked, then - when he learned how she knew he had a son - amazed that my mom remembered, since the boy had gone from elementary school to college in the intervening years.)

I wasn't relieved when I realized that no one was on duty here, though.

A few technican types passed by, one coming back from a late lunch or some such - this was around 2:30 - and nothing much else happened. By about 2:50 there was four of us waiting and someone finally came along and got things going.

"Leonard."

Nope, not falling for that again. If I get up, it'll turn out that the guy who came in before me is named Leonard. After a delay, some idiot's last name is uttered.

Wait, that's my last name. That's a bit of a surprise. I get up and sit down in the blood collection chair. She gets things ready for my left arm, but I ask her to use my right arm, saying that the left is destined for an IV.

She moves over and, after jabbing me, asks me my birthday. I tell her. Since it's coming up on April 17th, she mentions that car insurance rates tend to drop off a bit sometimes when you have a birthday (up to a certain point) on the grounds that a person is more responsible. She suggested I look into it. I don't drive, but I decided it wasn't worth getting into, so I just thanked her. Perhaps my tepid response was a trigger, but she kept it up, talking about age and driving responsibility for a while before she finally paused and said, "Do you drive?"

Caught, I said "no" and then wound up spending the rest of my time there explaining my lack of a license. (Long story, and one I'm rarely in the mood to retell.)

On to the CT scan. I don't know if they did some work or something, but the hall seemed wrong. So much so that I was staring at a blank door, trying to figure out if this door with the sign "CT Scan" hanging over it was where I usually went. Eventually I walked a bit further down the hall and found that I hadn't gone far enough. I had to go through a set of doors (that I don't remember being there before) and found myself in something that looked familar. It was the CT registration (to my right) and waiting area (to my left), same as always.

The doors behind me, combined with the similar set ahead of me where the Centennial building starts, gave me the feeling of being in an airlock.

A woman at the registration desk takes all my information. Not the one who's usually there in the colorful outfits, but another one in a somber green (somewhere between military olive green and forest green) shirt and a lab coat. After asking if I've done this before (Unsurprisingly, I answer yes.) she hands me a paper, saying I've probably already seen it, but it seems everyone needs to read it. I've never seen it before, so I sit back and look it over. Turns out it's something for people getting contrast IVs.

Of course, it probably also conflicts with what I've previously said, either because I've forgotten something since then or because I re-remembered something I'd forgotten. You've been warned.

December 17, 2002 AD.... I showed up, as requested, on the 10th floor of the Victoria building (Day Surgery) over an hour before scheduled to go under the proverbial knife. I was sent to a tiny waiting room: Two chairs in the hallway between two offices, no one else around except an elevator door standing rather incongruously in the far corner of the hallway. (I later realized was probably the back door of one of the Victoria elevators.) About ten minutes later someone came along and I was tended to. Basically, all this was for was to get me a hospital card. Various bits of information (next of kin, etc.) were asked for, and in exchange I was given a plastic green card with my name and some cryptic letters on it. This card now rests with my hospital card for St. Martha's in my wallet. (Speaking of my wallet, my parents were with me to hold my wallet and pick me up after it was over.)

I was shown to a locker room and changed into the fashionable johnny shirt and robe, spending extra time to tie the johnny shirt ties as tightly as I could. I was even given slippers with little happy faces on them. Rather cute, even if they felt like they were made out of stretchy Styrofoam.

I walked across the hall to another waiting room I was told to go to. It was roughly split in two by a low partition, one side was for patients and their families and the other was evidently for boxes and their families. A man was in the far corner of the box-side of the room, near a second door out into the hall, on a stretcher. His chest was moving, so he was alive - I watched him until I saw movement. No idea why he was there, alone. Very sad, really. I hoped that wasn't in store for me.

The lights on the box-side were off. I didn't think it was for the napping patient. I mean, if the conversation and the TV* didn't wake him, light wouldn't.

(*Running some 'pro-Canada' - note use of 'ironic' quotes - episode of The View, flags and such all over the place. Looked like a flag store exploded. Evidently they finally decided to do 'something' about that bloated whore Joy Behar and her anti-Canadian screed - it got so bad she seemed to, after running out of stereotypes to make fun of, try inventing and propagating new stereotypes. Most of us were ignoring the television.)

There was also a desk on the box-side of the partition, just deep enough in shadow to make working there annoying. A desk light was on to augment the minor spillover from the illuminated patient section. Seated at the desk was a nurse. After some waiting, my name was called. I sat down at the empty chair near the desk. The nurse asked me many questions about my health, allergies, when I last went to the bathroom, etc. I was also weighed.

Before long, she had a stack of sheets on me 6 deep and was just finishing filling out a new one relating my allergies and prostheses. (None and none, that was quick.) She then asked if I was, due to religious or personal beliefs, unwilling to accept blood transfusions. I said no. But then I thought of something. I don't know my own blood type. I know I'm O something. That's it.

I asked "In all that paper, do you have my blood type listed? I'd like to know it." I figured that if anyone should have it, it's the person asking me about transfusions. She looked around and couldn't find it. (So I asked the surgeon about 5 minutes later. He looked through HIS papers, couldn't find it. So he said "We'll check." They did take some blood when I was knocked out, so I presume they did.)

During the questioning, a nurse in surgical scrubs came in and spoke to the desk nurse. Mid 30s, I think. Redhead. This will be important later.

I took my waiting area seat again. Before long I'm called in to meet with my surgeon, John Grantmyre, who looked impressive in his surgical scrubs. Though I wondered at the sterility of everything if he was roaming around the hospital dressed like that.

I'd looked up his credentials after I met him the week before - yes, I met him a scant seven days before this, cancer is rather a hot button topic around here - he has a long and impressive career in the male fertility and urology fields. He's the guy who revamped Halifax's fertility clinic so the male and female clinics were in the same office. Before that they were in different buildings - different parts of town, even - and it was apparently a nightmare for couples. He's also done some amazingly intricate surgeries, involving (if I'm remembering it right) grabbing individual spermatozoa out of the seminiferous tubules of sterile men. This guy does detail work. I even heard a rumor that he was one of the main investigators in the clinical trials of sildenafil, better known as Viagra. (That's got your attention, don't it?) And he looks too young to have done all that. My first guess at his age was early 30s, but he's been doing stuff so long that I'm around 10 years off.

I realize that I'm lying down in some sort of bed and that I'm sleepier than I've ever felt before. Sleep seems like a good idea. But some part of me manages to focus long enough to say, "No! No! I have to wake up! WAKE UP!" I have no understanding of why I think waking up is important, I just have some deep and intense feeling that I have to remain awake, even if I have to fight every step of the way. (I don't know if I managed. But I don't remember blacking out.)

I try opening my eyes. They refuse to open. Okay, just concentrate on staying awake. I try to piece together where I am. Without visual cues (and with no obvious audio ones) I'm lost. I work with what I have. I'm lying down, and I have a dull ache about 2 inches up and to the right of the base of my penis.

Okay, that seems important. I try my eyes again and with some effort they oblige. I look around, and I'm in a room I've never seen before. I see a window that looks out on a late afternoon sky. Some realization seeps in. I see a number of men of varying ages in varying states of wakefulness.

A woman comes up to me and asks, "Are you awake?" I look at her. She's a nurse. I know that much from her uniform. But I've never seen her before.

My social and vocal skills are still out to lunch. All I manage to mumble is "I think my situational awareness is coming back." Hell of a set of first words, isn't it?

The nurse offers some generic words of encouragement and leaves. I continue to look around and wish I could roll over and go to sleep. A clock on the wall reads as after 2:30. (I was still very glazed, so the specific time is lost to me.) I was knocked out before 1:00. My surgery wasn't supposed to last that long. I was supposed to be out half an hour, forty-five minutes. Up before two. My brain isn't yet willing to think on what this means.

Fifteen minutes later and I have enough of my brains back - though still very groggy - to realize that I never finished answering the anesthesiologist. I think back on what happened. The only complex thought I can formulate is "It tastes sort of like the back of an envelope, but with a bit of banana creeping in." I'm at least thinking enough that I don't recite this now in the plainly inappropriate context.

Another 15 minutes and I realize I should've known that was going to happen. Anesthesiologist injects you with something, don't have long to go.

ANOTHER 15 minutes and a nurse comes by and checks my IV (it stopped twice, I restarted it myself - customer service skills in Halifax suck in every field). She tells me that the anesthetic threw me "for a bit of a loop" and I was out longer than anticipated.

I put my eavesdropping skills to good use: The nurse walks away and speaks to another nurse, about what sounded like me. Memorable comments:
"The anesthetic threw him for a bit of a loop." (That nurse must've liked the phrase.)
"He's so young!"
"You can tell he doesn't drink!" (I don't. I hate the taste of alcohol. I also keep a tight lock on my personality, as pointed out above. The idea of something happening to me that I don't remember frightens me greatly.)

My trip back to the land of the living keeps on its slow path. I notice the nurse walking around with a small bottle, injecting a few of the IVs with the contents. I hear the word "morphine" but I can't quite make the connection yet.

Eventually the nurse comes back and asks how I feel. My social skills are still weak, so I mutter a terse reply of "Sore." Hey, I was cut open two hours ago. How else am I supposed to feel?

She asks if I needed something for the pain and starts going for a bottle at the same time. Something in me makes the bottle-morphine connection and my brain kicks itself into overdrive. (I prefer being the one to alter my brain chemistry.) I wake up fast and say "Oh, no! Fine, good, okay, feel great, don't need anything, thanks!"

The nurse seems a bit put off and says "Well, since the anesthetic threw you for a loop, I wasn't going to give you much. You might be sensitive." Well, I appreciate the thought, but you went for that little bottle of opiates a bit quick....

(As it was, my surgeon later told me he had them put some long-acting painkillers the IV I woke up with anyway. He said I probably wouldn't need much more.)

I look across the room. A man is being wheeled in, he's out like a light. I think to myself, That was me around two o'clock.

After some time, they ask me if I'm ready to stand. I think that I am, and say so. The nurse closes the curtain around my bed and helps me up. It takes a bit of careful and painstaking effort to swing my legs over - my right leg is unwilling to cooperate due to pain in my abdomen when I move it too much - but standing isn't that bad. Some pain, nothing I can't handle.

While standing, the nurse says she's going to check my incision. She lifts up the johnny shirt (different one from the one I remember putting on, as are the slippers) and I oblige by holding it.

Now, I have a large pile of gauze on my abdomen. The area is covered in a brown stain (some kind of antibacterial compound, I later puzzled out) and I'm shaved there and for a good distance around. The area is differentiated from the rest of me in several different ways. Yet the nurse looks at me kind of funny and then kind of leans over a bit to try get a look at something around my genitals, away from the gauze. Finally she gives up on pretense and uses her latex-gloved hand to half-nudge my penis out of the way, looking at my scrotum.

Yeah, there's only one testicle in there now, what's the big deal? The entire scene confuses me. I'm left wondering if my scrotum is so strange that it requires a closer viewing. No one else ever complained. Eventually the nurse looks at the gauze on my front, taps at it suspiciously, and then she starts arguing with me over the number of incisions I have. She maintains I must have two while I maintain that I feel one, and I only have one gauze-pile stuck to me. Therefore, I have ONE.

She shrugs and helps me sit down. She leaves. She talks to another nurse, and I hear them talking about a back-up in the recovery lounge. The other nurse comes in and asks me what locker my clothes are in. I had committed the number to memory, so I recite it.

About ten minutes later she gets back with all my clothes. T-shirt, shirt, jeans, jacket, shoes. Socks and underwear in the little baggies in which I was told to put them.

I get dressed, with the nurse standing there and kibitzing. "Put your right leg in first, since you can bend your left easier." Occasionally she offers an arm to lean on.

I was sitting down tying my shoes before she left. She came back with a wheelchair. I got in, slowly. And so we finally leave this area behind and go to the recovery lounge. On my way there I see my parents walking down a hall. I suspect that my mom will still be a bit nervous until I acknowledge her, showing I'm back in right mind.

So I waved. Nonchalantly, as always.

Three hours later, my mom was worried. She phoned the number and found that it closes at 4:00. It was 4:05. The recording gave a few press 1/2/3/#/* options. She tried one. It was closed as well. This recording gave a second phone number to call, then disconnected without giving the chance to have it repeated. Unwilling to phone back three times to try scribble out the number, my parents went back to the hospital. Once there, they spoke to a few people but no one knew anything of importance. Then they saw me in the hallway.

While the fact that I was in a wheelchair and being shuffled about was a good sign, my mom was probably still nervous. She had been through so many hospitals and surgeries and seen so many other hospital patients pre- and post-op that (as far as I know) she had decided that nothing short of a sign of clarity of mind was proof that a person was recovering.

That instant, I wave. Nonchalantly, as always.

A nurse - she identifies herself as such - comes by and sits down next to me on a stool. She asks how I'm feeling, and if I'd like some water or juice. I just want to leave, so I politely decline.

The nurse gives me two brochures and goes over them with me, one on recovering from surgery and one on recovering specifically from an orchidectomy. I notice that the orchidectomy one seems patently wrong, and since she is basically reading them to me, her advice is therefore wrong. The part about not wearing normal underwear (have to wear mesh underwear) was particularly amusing.

"So you have to wear the mesh underwear your doctor gave you."

"He didn't give me any."

"What? Uh.... Oh."

Then came the prescription for painkillers. Ketrolac, 10 mg. She tells me to take a pill every eight hours.

(When I get them, I look over the bottle and find a statement to take them as needed, a MAXIMUM of once every eight hours. I follow that advice. The pain only got bad enough for me to consider taking a pill once, the next morning. By the time I'd eaten - you take them with food - the pain had subsided so I didn't bother. Since one of the side effects is nausea I figured it was safer to just leave the food in me and take my chances with the pain.)

I take the prescription and get ready to leave. But she stops me and says to a coworker, "They're coming down dressed so I forget to check them!" She tells me that she needs to check the incision and closes the curtain around the chair. I obligingly lower my pants and hike my shirt up. She does a similar double-take to what the other nurse did (What's wrong with my genitals?) and checks the gauze, rather suspiciously as well. I get dressed and get back into the wheelchair. I'm pushed by a male orderly out to the car. We move from the Victoria to the Centennial building around this point, setting up a mistake I'll repeat for the first year of my oncology appointment stories.

I carefully get into my father's car and we all leave and head to a motel for the night, since I'm not allowed to skip town until I've spent a night here in case something goes wrong.

I, due to my slow recovery and some back up in the recovery lounge, was gone by about 4:30.

We stop for takeout before heading to the motel room. Not being very hungry, I just get some french fries, but they forget to provide ketchup for them. I eat a few anyway. Later that night, around midnight and only a few hours after I manage to fall into an unpleasant sleep, some drunks a neighboring room return from - given what they shout at each other - a party that seemingly devolved into a brawl. This wakes me up. Thoughts of murder dance through my mind and it takes another hour to fall back to sleep.

I call my surgeon the next day once I get home. I have the pills and the brochures handy, just in case. I mention the painkillers.

He tells me about the painkillers he gave me and then asks, "When did she tell you to take those?"

"When we were talking about the orchidectomy. But she didn't seem too familiar with the operation and the brochure I think she was getting most of her information from is for a bilateral orchidectomy...."

"Talk a lot about your prostate, too?"

"Yes."

"Because we do that for prostate cancer**." (He sighs.) "I don't know why they gave you that one. Not only is it a bit old, but it's the wrong operation. Did you also get one about general after-surgery procedures?"

"Yes."

"Follow that one's advice. No heavy lifting, don't get the tape over the incision very wet, try to walk around regularly but don't exert yourself, simple things like that. But the other one's completely wrong. You obviously know your incision's not on your scrotum."

(**Prostate cancers sometimes feed on testosterone, so the doctor removes the suppliers. Bilateral (non-radical) orchidectomy is your straightforward castration and is done via the scrotum.)

And suddenly it all falls into place. I had all the information by the time I left the recovery lounge, but I needed to hear Dr. Grantmyre say "your incision's not on your scrotum" before it formed a coherent whole.

But once he said it, it was like an incantation opening up the door to enlightenment: The nurses thought I'd been castrated. That's why they were looking for the incision in the wrong place. That's why one said "He's so young!" - your twenties is not a great time to get castrated.

He also mentions that the tumor looked like a nonseminoma, but he warns that he isn't allowed to officially or legally make that distinction - he'll have to wait for the pathology report, as will I. This is the first statement I hear that admits it's cancer. Other than my surgeon telling me it had to come out, and a general hurriedness, it was barely even hinted at. It's not 'legally' cancer until the path lab says so.

Lawyers get cancer too. I wondered how they feel when they hear that.

Up to this point I'd been having an intensely bad day. I had well and truly decided that I hated working at EDS, and the calls I was taking weren't doing me any good either. It's hard to listen to someone bitch about a busted printer ruining their life when you're waiting for a biopsy. While I appreciate how important a printer is to a business, I can't put my health on a floppy and take it to Kinko's to get a four-color glossy copy made. Nor can I purchase a new one for sixty bucks.

I had expected the result. Had it not been cancer, I'd have been floored. I don't think what happened next was so much from the diagnosis as it was from the fact that I finally had an excuse to put on the sign-in/out form that I knew no one would dare question.

What happened next was that, as my fifteen-minute break ended and I should have been returning to my desk, I calmly walked to the washroom, entered a stall, and had a good long cry.

Then I roamed around aimlessly, looking around the building and sizing up the bleak field of employment opportunities I'd seen in the past six months. I ran into and spoke to one of the few decent people there for a good long time, and by then the day was over.

I was right. This was the one time they didn't later question my absence from the phones. However, I was smart enough to submit the sign-out form to the nicest supervisor in the place, not my own. A petty manipulation, perhaps. But it was all I was in the mood for.

As I leave for the day, I realize that the true battle remains ahead. My health is on the line, and my first oncologist visit is coming soon.

I hung a left as I walked into the elevator area and walked halfway down the hall, away from the Centennial building access. I tried the door to the stairs experimentally (some places, like the Professional Centre in Halifax, force you to use elevators and keep the ground floor door unopenable from the outside and the other floors unopenable from the inside - I think it's nuts, but that's just me). It opened.

I climbed up a claustrophobic set of stairs that seemed to have been built for a small child. Wide enough for me to hold both rails without much stretching, barely deep enough to plant my foot, with no landings - the stairs curved in a sharp semi-spiral. For lack of a better description, as a spiral staircase is to a circle, these stairs were to an ellipse - a tight curve at the ends, almost straight on the sides.

I got out at the next exit (third floor) and revised my plans to leg it up to the 11th, even if the exercise would do me good. I was genuinely worried I'd slip and fall all the way down.

I walked down the hall towards the elevators, intent on examining the wall blocking the third arm of the Victoria to see how it looked. Instead, I got a rather big shock.

There was no wall. Where I expected one, it was open onto the hall beyond. Plexiglass windows along the top and sides forming the support for an invitingly open set of standard-sized double doors. I walked through, half believing I'd hit a wall as I did. I didn't. I found myself standing in the chest x-ray area. I turned around and looked back at the way I came. It didn't look right. I know a wall used to be there. A brick wall with a closed windowless door on the right side. I wondered if they did some work on it the same time they added that second set of doors to the CT scan area. Shrugging, I went back through and waited for the elevator.

As I waited for the elevator, I noticed that the floor tiles where the door was were different from the ones on either side of the door - meaning they were likely put in later. I felt a bit better about myself.

Recently arrived in the elevator area were two women, speaking quietly. After a long wait in front of the pair of elevator doors to the left of the new hole in the wall, one woman started to walk away, towards the right pair of doors. Then the left door she had been standing in front of opened, forcing her to hurry back. I was tempted to say "That's what you get for walking away from it." but instead opted to hold my tongue.

The two women got in to the empty elevator before I did. The one who had been walking away, hence called Longhair in honor of her most notable differentiating trait, hit the button for 11. I said, "How convenient, I'm going to 11 as well." before she could ask me what floor I was going to.

Longhair's friend (Shorthair, natch) had, despite getting in before me and standing in back of the elevator, nudged around me to get to the very front. I thought nothing of it at the time. Had I paid closer attention, I'd have noticed that Shorthair was leaning against the door, face close to it and hands flat against it.

Longhair started reading the numbers as they passed. I thought that a bit odd, but didn't say anything. "4... 5... 6... 7... 8..." - the elevator started to decellerate - "and we're slowing.... 9." Shorthair backed away from the elevator door just before it opened. No one got on. I noticed that the desk on floor 9 is as empty and unlabeled as the one on the enigmatic floor 8 that has a blank directory listing.

No one got in on floor 9. In fact, the only evidence of life in the corridor was the sound of two people conversing down one of the three halls that radiate away from the elevator area. Longhair said "Oh, that's not nice!" rather loudly. Assuming the comment was addressed to me, I hummed/grunted in agreement. Shorthair resumed her post at the very edge of the elevator car, like she was attempting to get her nose clipped by the closing doors. I peered around her to see if one of the voices I heard down the corridor was running for the elevator. It wasn't. The doors closed and Shorthair leaned, palms against the door, just like before. This time I noticed and thought on how that didn't seem like a good idea should the doors be the slightest bit weak.

Longhair resumed her counting. "10... and here we are. 11." I realized that she was counting the floors for the benefit of Shorthair. For a moment I wondered if Shorthair had poor vision and was simply holding on to the doors as something concrete and visible to cope with. But no - she walked for the main desk and spoke to the receptionist with no problem. She was likely scared of being on elevators.

Well, there's always the stairs.

Shorthair registered for an appointment with an oncologist, one with an unfamiliar name. She'd had all her tests done earlier in the day, leading to some gushing from the secretary, as I was used to. Okay, there's another person with some self-awareness in this place.

As they headed for the waiting room, I spoke to the secretary. I explained who I was and that I was there for some forms. The secretary got them for me and was similarly giddy about my taking charge of my health. Giddy even though she had to get up and roam all across the first few rooms of Victoria 11 North digging up the papers.

When she got back, I said "I'm really making you run today."

"Oh, don't worry about it. We don't mind, we'd rather you have the tests done as soon as possible."

I thought back on my doctor telling me not to get the bloodwork over a week before the appointment, and a question came to mind. "Can I get the x-ray done this soon? I'm always told to get it done an hour before the examination. I know that's the minimum length of time, but is it the maximum...?"

She says, "No, not at all. We'd rather you have it done today. All the results will be in and ready to go tomorrow." (Sense a theme?)

My oncologist's nurse walked up with a sheaf of papers. Despite not seeing me in four months, she recognized me instantly. "Hello Leonard! What are you doing here?" She's either good with people or my face is just one of those you can't forget no matter how hard you try. Most likely both.

"Picking up some forms."

"You have an appointment tomorrow?"

"Yes."

We spent a minute chatting idly before the conversation wound down and I excused myself. The secretary pointed out that I could get my blood taken up there if I wished - no waiting. Deciding that couldn't be a bad thing, I asked where to go. She pointed down the hall dubbed what I believe is 11 South (the hall opposite where the exam rooms are) and said, "See the little gray signs over some of the doors? First door on the left with one of those."

I looked. I didn't see it, but figured I couldn't go far wrong. "Okay, thanks very much!" I walked down the hall. 15 feet down and I saw that one of the doors on the left had "Blood collection." written over it on a little gray sign. Jackpot.

Beyond the gray sign was a rather nondescript room, like the 11 North exam rooms, only with an old recliner instead of an examination bed and a table with a PC on it instead of a table with old copies of Rosie on it. Some lockers were built right into the walls, which made me flash back to Deus Ex briefly* and wish for either a lockpick or a LAM** and a gun*** so I could get the lockers open.

(* Not a great game, as I dislike inventory management and all this creeping about, though the writing and cinematics weren't bad.)

(** Lightweight Attack Munition or something - a grenade/proximity mine.)

(*** Quick hint - need a precision explosion in that game? Place a LAM on the target wall, stand back, equip a firearm - preferrably one with a scope - and shoot the LAM. I don't know why people who write walkthroughs and reviews can't think of this stuff. I make stuff blow up from halfway across the map.)

However, I found myself lacking lockpicks and weapons, so I just walked into the room without excessive violence. An older woman was using the PC. As I entered the room, she turned, got up and greeted me. I waved my pair of bloodwork papers (today's and the ancient one I'd kept as a backup) and asked if they were identical. (I hadn't had time to check myself.) They were, so I kept the old one.

It was surprisingly quick. A minute of waiting for the technician to type in the information, and then a label printer (not unlike the ones I remember at Antigonish, made by - or named - "Z0N" or some such) spit out a pair of labels. I recited my name and birthday for the technician, my blood was taken, and I was done.

As I left I looked around. Blocking the hall to my left was a set of double doors, with an imposing sign reading "Surgery - no route through. Do not enter." bolted onto one of them. Presumably people were trying to get to the Centennial building via the surgery area. (And even if there is a way, do you want people roaming around the surgery wards?)

Ahead of me was another set of stairs. Since the tiny set was in the north wing and I was now in the south, I decided to try it. (You now have enough information to determine if the third wing attached to the Dickson is East or West. Answer later.) I pushed the door open. Wide spacious stairs. Landings every half-story. This, I thought, is more like it.

I had jogged down to floor seven when I noticed something through the little window on the door. A sign reading "Thoracic Surgery" and, on the next line, "Thoracic Fellow". Sounds prestigious, but I figure that there's got to be some teasing that goes with being called the "Thoracic Fellow".

I got the idea to hike back up to floor nine to see what could be seen out that window (completely forgetting that floor eight was the really enigmatic one). And what did I see? Nothing. No window in floor nine's door. Feeling stupid, I jogged the rest of the way down to the third floor.

(Most embarrassing thing I ever did on a flight of stairs in a public place - I was in a rush and running full-tilt down the Dickson's stairs. I was three stairs up from a landing when I saw a woman rounding the corner coming up the stairs and right in my way. Having little time to react, I planted one foot hard and threw myself sideways. My forward momentum carried me past her and slammed me into the wall of the landing. I had turned myself so my arm took the brunt of the blow, but it's hard to recover from that kind of embarassment. Arm throbbing painfully, I just smiled, appologized, and kept on running down the stairs.)

I got out on the third floor and went through the new door. I would have asked the woman at the desk about the door, but she wasn't there. (She wasn't there my first trip through the door, either.) I walked down the Long Hall toward the Dickson elevators and took a number at registration. While sitting down waiting for my number to be called, I looked over my old and new x-ray forms and wrote down the differences, hopefully confusing the hell out of anyone overly curious. I used the new one, because it was dated with today's date. The only other thing I noticed was differing signatures and how atrocious someone's (my oncologist's, I think) handwriting was. There was a "720" (I think) on the form and the "2" was a squiggle joining the cross-bar of the seven (I never put crossbars on my sevens) to the base of the zero. My handwriting is bad, but I don't think it's quite this zany.

After registering, the woman at the desk gave me the instructions to get to the chest x-ray desk. While I'd heard them before, I listened closely. I noticed that she didn't tell me to go to the end of the hall, which I'm sure I've heard before. I walked down the hall and handed my paper over to the woman who had magically appeared in the past ten minutes. Without waiting for me to explain what I was there for, the woman at the desk simply told me to remove my jacket and shirt and sit in the waiting room. She seemed in a rush, so I didn't bother her with the door question. I stashed my jacket and shirt in a locker and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

I read several women's magazines and even part of a Watchtower featuring obnoxiously pastoral artist's conceptions of the Earth, post-Second-Coming. I found that this one magazine called Elm Street contained a disturbing number of ads featuring naked women, more than a non-adult men's magazine. Here I am, interested in an article on Andrea Bocelli and I had to fold the page funny to try make the ad featuring the lower halves of women's breasts - including the lower half of the nipple - seem less like an ad featuring the lower halves of women's breasts. I felt like a dirty old man every time someone passed by.

There was also an amusing(?) item on the letters page in which a reader revealed she had become a reader after taking home a copy found in a doctor's office. Might as well write "steal this magazine" across the page.

A man in a wheelchair was sitting across from me. With him was a woman. The technician came out and called a male name. The woman stood up and said "Over here!" and started to disengage the chair's brake. The technician came over and said, to the woman, "Can he stand up on his own?"

"Yes," the woman replied, "but he can't walk long stretches."

"Oh, okay. Does he have any prosthetics?" (Or some similar basic medical question.) I leaned forward and took a good look at the man. Despite a dispassionate look on his face - something I'd have a hard time managing in the same situation - he seemed intelligent enough to speak. No obvious disabilities. I wondered for a moment why the technician didn't address questions to him. After all, who knows better than he does how long he can stand?

The technician got behind the wheelchair and pushed it towards the x-ray room door. Only then did she start speaking to the man in the chair. His answers indicated at least an average intelligence and no disabilities to prevent easy conversation.

I sat back and scowled for a bit over how easily people - even ones who work in the industry - exclude sick people from conversations and discussions about their health, particularly ones who aren't standing (in hospital beds, wheelchairs, just sitting down...).

The room was almost full when I got there and going was slow. Several people were called in multiple times - they were telling people not to get dressed. I was worried this was in store for me.

It wasn't, though. When my name ("Leonard Petra") was called, I went through the standard affair of holding on to the machine and being told to hold my breath. Though this technician was the first to adjust its height for the side scan differently from the front scan (she set it higher for the side shot, so I felt less like a trapeze artist and more like someone hanging from chains in a dungeon).

On my way out, I considered asking someone about the door, but it was lunch time and the only person around was a nurse tending to a man, asleep or unconcious in a hospital bed. Feeling that my concerns were rather incidental compared to a comatose patient, I didn't bother her. I headed for the Dickson elevators and, as is my wont, decided it was faster to take the stairs down, letting me out a few feet from the Dickson entrance.

The fun of the escalators exhausted, I decided a waiting room was less depressing, so for once I arrived far too early entirely of my own volition.

The secretary recognized me. She checked my name off the list, and directed me to the waiting room, ending the instructions by calling me "Honey". They really like people who get stuff done early.

Passing the stairs that, on the ground floor, are tiny and uncomfortable, I was overcome with a temptation to push the door open and see if it's as bad up here. I pushed. It isn't. Wide spacious stairs. So what happened with the first few floors, then?

"I hung a left as I walked into the elevator area and walked halfway down the hall, away from the Centennial building access."

"She pointed down the hall dubbed what I believe is 11 South..." to get bloodwork done. Leaving the bloodwork area, I note that "Presumably people were trying to get to the Centennial building via the surgery area." at the end of 11 South's hall.

I also say... "like the 11 North exam rooms" and "Since the tiny set was in the north wing and I was now in the south, I decided to try it."

Ergo, the Centennial is attached to Victoria South. Note that I walked away from the Centennial access to take the first flight of stairs. If the access is in the south wing, I must have been walking north.

The main branch of the Victoria is thus made up of wings named North and South. If I turned left from the wing leading to the Dickson to head into the north wing, the Dickson-terminated wing is obviously Victoria West, not East. Victoria West ends at the Dickson, Victoria South ends at the Centennial, Victoria North ends at nothing in particular (ground floor exit, then a roadway, with the Bethune (or MacKenzie?) building across the road), and there's no east wing.

So, if you figured all that out, have a cookie.

Just then, I saw some chairs resting at the end of the hall. Different in shape and design from the waiting room ones, so I knew they weren't the missing ones. Unwilling to move them, I walked down the hall and sat down there. Unfortunately, this gave you perfect view of two exam rooms, rather impolite if they're filled and the doors are left open by careless doctors. Fortunately, both were empty. I just hoped this wasn't someone else's waiting room. The view out of the window at the end of 11 North's hall was rather nice, though. Got a good look at the road below and part of the Dickson's parking lot.

Around 11:00, my oncologist's nurse appeared and waved at me. I waved back. She waved at me again. I pointed at myself. She pointed at the scale they use to weigh patients. I got up and walked forward, muttering about how this place really needs a good standardized sign language.

I asked why I was being taken so early. The response: "The doctor is busy with another patient, so you still have a long wait ahead. But you'll be meeting with an intern while you wait." On my way to the exam room, I wondered if this woman (it's always a woman) was going to be antsy around a naked man or not....

She didn't take long to show up. Much to my shock, it was a young woman in a colorful headscarf, clothing typically associated with a Middle Easterner from one of the more relaxed theocracies. Her skin tone and accent (and name - which, in the manner of all names I likely won't hear again, left my mind almost instantly) were from the same region. (Of course, I'm not an expert on anything between the Czech Republic and China, so I could be very very wrong.) I'm not (very) racist, but I was surprised that someone apparently brought up in that part of the world would go into a career that involved examination of disrobed men. I did my best to hide the surprise.

But then, some Western-born-and-bred oncologist interns seem downright uncomfortable about the idea of examining me. A brief rant.... I really think that every professor of medical oncology should be ordered to take their students (of both sexes) aside one-by-one on their first day and say, "Okay, I know that you've learned about medicine and have seen many naked bodies of both sexes, from illustrations to surgery patients to cadavers, but I want you to understand something. Maybe you've realized that you will be examining lumps in women's breasts and are okay with that, but there's also cervical cancer and testicular cancer. You are going to be looking at - and feeling - parts of people's bodies that you may have never touched on your significant other. Because cancer strikes anything, you are going to have the combined examination experience of a urologist, a gynecologist, a proctologist, a podiatrist, and any other specialization you can think of. You will have your hands in odd places. I just want you to understand that so you aren't surprised the first time you're told to perform an examination of something you haven't seen live and in living color before." I really think that speech would save patients like me time. There, rant over.

The doctor/intern asked me the standard list of questions about my health. Eventually she got to discussing my bowel: "Have you been constipated lately?"

"Well, yes, but only the past few days."

"Can you think of a reason why?"

"Yes, I've been working on a job application for a completely new field for me**** and I've been nervous about it. Stress like that messes up my regularity."

Let's see.... November, 2002. I went to see my GP about a lump on my testicle. He told me, just before the actual examination, that it could be a knot of veins, nothing to worry about, but he'd check to make sure. Not long after, I first did the clambering onto an examination table and lowering of my jeans that I've since become very used to.

He checked. Within seconds of putting his hand on my right testicle, he said, "Well, that's not veins...." Okay....

Dressed and seated in front of his desk again, I was told that I needed to get an ultrasound. I asked what it could be, if it could be something serious. My doctor said, "I could name a thousand things to scare you, but there's also thousands of things that are harmless. That's what the ultrasound is for."

Now, I could've probably scheduled one for the next day in Halifax, but having too much faith in the local medical people, I decided to schedule in Antigonish instead.

There was a month long wait.

The month dragged past, and I spent most of it working in my dreaded call center job. A few days before the ultrasound, I had a day or two where I suffered discomfort from my right testicle. Not pain, but I couldn't sit right. You know those stupid Preparation H commercials, where a hemorrhoid sufferer squirms and contorts in their chair? I looked kind of like that.

Since the ultrasound was so close, there was little I could do but wait it out. I have something of a fatalistic attitude for these things - once the wheels are set in motion, I shrug and ride it out. (When it's happening to someone I care for, then I do the wailing and worrying and second-guessing.) But if there'd been another month before my ultrasound, I think I'd have bolted for Halifax like a streak of light.

December the 5th, I believe, I took a day off work and headed for my ultrasound at St. Martha's. I arrived early and had a hospital card made up. I then got to sit in the radiology section I'd later sit in while waiting for my first CT scan and while waiting for a dose of Gastrografin for my first Halifax CT scan.

There was a call to Mass at one point. I suppose it's to be expected at a place called St. Martha's, particularly when the parking lot has a side exit that goes straight to the motherhouse on the hill.

A bit of background: Outside the main entrance are two statues, one of a nurse in 60ish style nursing garb and one of a nun in the pure white habit/outfit that the nursing orders used to wear.

There's also a cryptic sign that says "PARKING VIOLATIONS ARE ENFORCED", telling me that the old days of the Church being the most educated group are long gone. The same odd sentence appears regularly on exit doors and in the other parking lots - even the parking lot outside the emergency room entrance, which I could see clearly from the windows in the radiology waiting area.

After some long wait, I was called by a male technician, not that old at all. I followed him down a hall to the left of the appontment desk (the CT room is actually in the hall outside the rad area, so to get there you need to backtrack out towards the exit) and into a dark room with a curtain hiding the back half of the room.

Behind the curtain, I was prepped. I lied (lay?) down on an examination table and lowered my pants to my knees. The technician warned me that, so the ultrasound device would slide across the area easier, I was going to have to have some gel put on the area. Yay, an ultrasound AND a lube job all in one day! I felt truly blessed.

Apparently, they had recently started warming the gel before application, so at least it wasn't going to be cold. It didn't feel cold, I'll admit, but it did feel weird as hell.

In this dark room, with the only illumination coming from the ultrasound machine's monitor and lighted keyboard (touchpad style keys, not keyboard style keys), it was hard to see. Bright colors showed up more than dark ones. The technician's white latex gloves showed up more than his arms, so there was this effect of a ghostly hand grasping something that looked like a transparent version of ketchup or mustard bottle, and spraying my scrotum with the similarly-transparent contents. The contents moved a lot like molasses, slowly crawling down my scrotum and making a run for my perineum. Fortunately, the technician was posessed with much forethought and had given me towels to shore the area up with, so I was saved the feeling of this stuff creeping down my perineum and then along my buttcrack.

(Whatever that room was used for originally, it clearly had some changes - the exam table was wedged against a door whose knob had been removed and filled in. The entire door was painted over last time the room was redone, as well.)

Now began the examination. A device, shaped a bit too much like a computer's mouse, with a metal rectangle on the side (the point of contact) was held against my scrotum, to get a series of shots of my right testicle. After each shot, the technician moved it slightly.

We proceeded in silence. Due to the placement of the exam table, I could turn my head and watch the keyboard. Where the numeric keypad would be on a real keyboard was a nine-key touchpad. Each key had a little green light in its corner. The technician took nine shots. Before each shot he'd press a pad button and its light would blink. Then, after taking the shot, the light would go solid. He progressed from upper-left to upper-right, then middle-left to -right, then bottom-left to -right. I noticed that twice he was disappointed with the shot: he didn't move the mouse-thing much, and re-pressed the last keypad button. The solid green started blinking again, and he took another shot.

After finishing up, he said, "Okay, now that we have the right one, we're going to do the left one, so we'll have something to compare with." I figured they might also be checking it for anything not yet findable via touch.

With this series done, he got up to leave. He said he had to visit the radiologist to make sure the shots were okay. If not, he'd do some more. So he didn't give me anything to clean up with yet.

He removed his gloves and retrieved an envelope, presumably to put the shots in. As he did, we exchanged idle chatter. I did something somewhat unpleasant here, deliberately guiding the conversation towards how an ultrasound works. While I don't remember the exact wording, I managed to get him on the subject of tumors vs. cysts, and then he said something like this....

"Well, I'm not allowed to make diagnoses, but we know what to look for. Because liquid reflects less ultrasound than solids, a liquid-filled cyst shows up dark. A solid tumor shows up light."

Just what I needed. "Really? Interesting. What was mine then?"

This was horrendously unfair of me, because it put this well-meaning technician in a bad position. In a way, he's already made a diagnosis by saying that to me. He's broken it down to a simple choice of light or dark on a monitor. Of course, he could have withheld the information. Either my relaxed nature and my catching him on the spot worked on him, or he realized he'd already said too much and was damned either way.

"Uh.... It was.... Umm.... It was light." He quickly followed this with "But it could be something else. Please remember that-"

I cut him off. I put my arms behind my head in that pose that reflects feelings of self-superiority. "You're a technician, not a doctor capable of making a diagnosis. You don't know everything about the human body, or even my complete medical history, so it could be something that you haven't studied in school, as a GP would have. Don't worry. I have a lot of faith in my doctor. I have no intentions of panicking unless he does. I'm entirely at peace right now, willing to wait for my doctor to call me in to talk about what he saw on the ultrasound. Thank you very much for telling me what you have. I appreciate it."

Taking the statement as a dismissal, he said, "Uh.... I'll be right back." and left.

My emotions weren't in any particular turmoil at this point. Some part of me felt lousy over putting the poor guy on the spot like that, but most of me was wallowing in that warm feeling I get when I successfully manipulate someone into handing over information they might not have been willing to. I'm not great at it, but when it works it's like playing an instrument, and it scares me how much I enjoy it.

All in all, though, I felt peace. Really. I felt like the wheels were still turning, and I, left with nothing to do, could just sit back and wait. Worry was useless, crying was futile, so I didn't.

The guilt over what I'd done was nagging, though.

Turning to more practical concerns, I contemplated how this goop that a rather private part of me had been covered with turned out to be an excellent conductor of heat away from the body, so my testicles were starting to cool off rapidly. No wonder they started heating this stuff.

In the hall outside, I hear a woman calling a man's name, perhaps "Robert".

"Robert?"

"Robert? Are you there?"

"Robert?"

This last one was closer and louder than the others. I realized she must have come into the room through the partially open door. Great. My pants at my ankles and the entire Foreign Legion is going to come marching through.

I start to say something to the effect that Robert's not behind the curtain, but was too late; she stepped behind the curtain, looked at me - she was an older woman, wearing an ID tag denoting she worked here, though perhaps as a floor cleaner - and frowned. "You're not Robert."

I almost said "What part of me did you use to figure it out?", but bit it back. She left without another word.

About ten minutes more and the technician came back. The shots were fine. He handed me a large stack of towels to get rid of the goop, then left for the other side of the curtain.

Through the curtain, I mentioned the older woman who stopped by. The technician didn't seem surprised. Perhaps she comes by every time a guy's getting an ultrasound, I don't know.

And the large stack of towels was needed. I hadn't shaved anything - I was told it wasn't needed - so this marvellous lubricant goop was now caught in my hair. A lot of it. And the towels, despite being absorbent, didn't absorb this stuff at all. Each towel rapidly became so 'goopified' that I was wiping as much onto my hands as I was wiping off my scrotum. Funny, it didn't seem like this much going on....

Down to my last towel, I decided to use it on my now-icky hands and leave the remaining bits of goop for home, where I had access to soap and water and a bathtub. (I walked a bit funny out of there, as one bit I had missed oozed merrily along the crease where my leg meets my torso.)

I left the pile of towels on the exam table and asked if that was okay. It was. I tucked my shirt back into my pants and put my jacket on.

I paused for a moment to make sure I was collected. Walking back around the curtain, I thanked the technician warmly, smiling as I did. (I don't remember clearly if I shook his hand, but given the whole lubricant fiasco, I think that I probably didn't.) He seemed to react well. I wasn't quite willing to bring myself to apologize. Perhaps I should've.

With a final wave, I left.

First order of business was a visit to my GP about a very strange illness that I had, simultaneously flu- and cold-like, with the symptoms shifting every few days, ending in a series of a half-dozen cankers (making chewing and swallowing painful) and as many cold sores. This illness was followed by the onset of what seemed like allergies - something I've never had before.

When my name was called, I wasn't the only person to get up. An older man, sitting with his daughter (daughter-in-law?) and adorable young granddaughter, also started to get up. While I have no direct proof, I presume that means his name is Leonard as well.

My doctor was of great help. While he couldn't nail the condition down to something specific, he did say it was likely viral, and that the wildly varied symptoms might be he misfortune of the disease and the allergy arriving at the same time. He also gave me some advice for pinpointing the allergy, and said it sounded airborne, giving me a good starting point from which to work.

He asked if I had bloodwork done yet. I said no, that was my next stop. He was happy to hear that, and gave me a bloodwork form. He said they could do both at once, just hand both in. Thinking ahead, I asked if he figured they'd be able to do both even on the 11th floor cancer clinic blood collection. He said yes.

Then came the amusing part. He knows I'm good with computers, and asked for some advice on his.

Up on the 11th floor. Again, I didn't need to trigger the 11 button, as one woman - looked like a secretary rather than a patient or doctor, given her non-medical clothing and large stack of paperwork - who got on with me was also going to that floor. Never fails.

Someone was getting bloodwork taken, so the technician told me to put my form in something affixed to the door that's best described as a metallic version of a partly-open manilla envelope.

I mentioned that there was two forms, and asked if that's okay. She said it was fine, just to fold them so they were together. (The main floor Dickson clinic blood collection asks that you place them flat - unfolded - in a tray. You understand why I didn't want to go there.) This done, she told me to go to the waiting room across the hall - the chemo waiting room.

The room - far larger than the clinic waiting room down the hall - was fairly full, ages of the occupants varying from young to old. I was one of the youngest ones, as pediatric oncology goes through the IWK children's hospital.

Chemotherapy is none too pleasant, and some of the people waiting showed it (not as many as I expected, though, for reasons that become obvious later). One ill-looking older man had rested his head on a table and fallen into an uncomfortable sleep. I felt sorry for him.

But anyway.... I arrived early for my appointment and was almost sent for another x-ray and bloodwork. This secretary didn't seem impressed or even mildly happy that I'd got the bloodwork and x-ray done previously. Indeed, she seemed rather nonplussed. I took the forms for use the next time. I was directed to the chemo waiting room - the exam waiting room was closed for two days due to maintenance. This explained the large number of people in the chemo waiting room the day before, few of whom looked like chemo patients.

Soon after sitting down, I heard the call of nature. Since I had 20 minutes before my appointment time - I was the first appointment as well - I figured I was safe. I was less than 10 minutes. Want to guess who was called while I was gone?

I found my oncologist's nurse and we went through the weighing (181 pounds, I forget what I was before, though my mom tells me my clothes don't look as snug lately) and medical rundown. I explained the whole illness/allergy thing again. I mentioned that the illness settled in soon after returning from my last trip here. The nurse said, "The city's not a good place to be when it comes to disease."

This comment caught me a bit off guard - a trend that would continue for the rest of the day. I replied "Neither is a hospital."

As to my apparent allergy, the nurse said something to the effect of, "You know, we have a lot of people whose allergies are worse than normal. And even a few like you who haven't had allergies before who are showing signs."

Since their patients are all over the province, I wonder what that means.

She also asked if I wanted her to fax the blood test results to my GP. I said that he'd been CCed the results. She mentioned that it would take him a week to get the results via normal channels. I told her not to worry, since I'll at best be going back to him in two months.

After she left, I started reading a fascinating National Geographic article on sunspots. Of course, with something good to read, an intern showed up almost immediately. Young (of course), slightly below average height, and named Allison.

She said my name, or something approximating it.

"Yes."

"Did I say your name right?"

"Close enough."

"How do you say it?"

I said it, exactly as it's spelled.

She looked at the paper she was holding and gave it a look that said, "I should've known...."

I continued, "Don't worry about it. That's how everyone where I live says it, unless they say 'Peters'. But show the older ones a picture of my great-grandfather and they say 'Grandpere Pitter!'".

"Really?"

"And that's not the right pronunciation, either."

"Oh."

I never did tell her the proper French pronunciation, mostly because I can't say it myself. (The end is a sort-of-aspirated 'truh' sound that also requires a tongue-flick - a short rolled 'r' - I just can't do.)

Allison was the first intern in a long time who had be go through the whole johnny shirt ritual, a mild annoyance since I need to take my sneakers off to get my jeans and underwear off, and hopping around in one's socks while trying to avoid the open window which is blowing cold wind up the back of your johnny shirt is never fun.

While I did all this, Allison was on the other side of a curtain. She noticed the name of my GP and mentioned that she was a classmate and friend of his daughter. His youngest daughter is the only one of his children to carry on the family profession - I think my GP's father was a well-known Halifax pediatrician - and he's happy to advertise the fact that there's another doctor in the family. Somewhat to his chagrin, any hopes he had of a family member practicing in Halifax were dashed when his daughter fell in love (figuratively) with the people she was working with in Ontario, and also fell in love (literally) with a "very nice young fellow" whom she recently married.

Allison spoke for a good while about the daughter and how she was doing. (Her depth of knowledge on the young woman made it plain that they were friendly enough to keep in contact since she moved.) In fact, the conversation wound down just as I finished the putting-my-shoes-on-with-a-draft-up-my-ass happy dance.

If it hadn't, it would have stopped rather abruptly a minute later, when I had to go into heavy-breathing mode while Allison checked my lungs. She also checked my neck lymph nodes, and did something I don't remember others doing - put the stethoscope on my stomach (right side) and listened for something.

All further discussion was about how often I checked my testicle, etc. We got on the subject of odd changes to the body and how one's reaction to them suddenly takes on a bit of panic once one has had cancer. I was having a hard time articulating my thoughts for reasons I can't fathom. I blame lack of sleep.

One thing, perhaps worth pointing out, is that during the testicle examination, they're very careful not to hurt me. As in, they use an incredibly light touch, far lighter than I do. Of course, I know what hurts and what doesn't. And even so, sometimes I think I feel a lump, lose track of it, and then go on a mad grope trying to find it again and wind up hurting myself in the process. Ah, paranoia.

After all that, she told me to get dressed while she left to fetch my oncologist.

I got dressed - though I didn't do up my dress shirt, since my oncologist might conceivably want to check something and I'd feel silly re-unbuttoning - and used the extra waiting time to look around the room. Two mysterious doors in the room which were normally closed were open a bit, so I peeked inside. One leads to a storeroom, packed right to the door with boxes, and the other leads to a small but comprehensive bathroom (Shower stall and everything!) that I never knew existed.

Some time after my curiosity was sated, my oncologist arrived, looking entirely confusing in a sweater and shorts. Evidently the shorts were due to how hot the place got in the afternoon, but her top looked as warm as what I was wearing. It also had a cursive "L" on it, in a similar position to but thankfully smaller than the one Laverne (of Laverne & Shirley) used to wear.

I will, however, take a moment to ruminate on the fact that a woman with long legs can get away with wearing longish shorts while still appearing to be showing a lot of leg.

...

Okay, moment over.

We did some variation on that whole stand-up-sit-down-shake-hands dance where one of us tries to do shake hands with the other, but the other is doing something else at the time (like sitting down) and has to stop and reverse whatever they were doing.

My oncologist had heard of my multi-week illness, and spoke to me about it; after all, despite her specialization in tumors, she's still an MD. She admitted that she was stumped as to any cause. When I mentioned the suggestion it might be viral, she said, "Yeah, that's what we say when we don't know."

Good vote of confidence, there.

She also mentioned all the extra blood tests and said that the only one that was outside normal range was my hemoglobin, and "the minimum is 140 and you had 139, so I wouldn't worry." Of course, she doesn't know precisely why my GP ordered the tests, so he might see something odd based on my previous bloodwork on his file.

She also took the x-ray paper back, but not the bloodwork form. As she was walking out, she turned and said, "How's the job hunt going?"

"Not well."

She frowned. "Awww, don't tell me that."

I shrugged. "I wouldn't, but I'm not a liar." My brain snagged when I heard this, trying to reparse it to make sure it was right.

"Do you speak French?"

"Nope, I'm a monoglot." (Were I thinking straighter I'd have said "Pas un mot." It means "Not a word." I also used to know how to say "Sorry, I don't speak any German." in German, but I've lost it. I have it written down somewhere.)

"Shame. If you spoke French you might be able to find work at one of those Acadian events going on."

This issue raises plenty of ire in me, but it's not her fault so I kept my voice light. "I'll let you in on a little secret. Most of the people where I live who crow about their 'Acadian heritage' can't speak French either."

She left Allison to finish filling out the CT scan form. I, discreetly as possible (which is to say, not very), tucked my dress shirt into my jeans while I waited.

After she finished, she went to hand the form to me, but paused. "Do I give this to you...?"

I had to dredge that one up from the back burner myself. "No. They take it and call me with the scheduled time."

"I'd forgotten about that."

By this time we were walking out of the room. I made a dismissive gesture. "Don't worry about it. I only have one set of procedures to remember. You have far more."

We wished each other well and parted ways.

Next month: No idea. FAQ updating, probably. I need to add a link to my ultrasound story in the item about my reaction to the cancer diagnosis, and never did add a question on how others react to a cancer diagnosis.

The month after that: CT scan time again! Yay! Let's see if I remember to shave....

I had phoned my oncologist's nurse and asked if the IV I was getting would interfere with my bloodwork. Normally I get the bloodwork first, but a scheduling screwup meant I couldn't. (The scheduling paperwork seemingly got lost and I played phone tag for a week until I found someone who could help me. By then there was only an early morning appointment which I'd have to get up at 4:00 AM to make. I'm not moving that back to 3:30 just so I can get bloodwork done!)

Bright and early yesterday - well, somewhat bright and too damn early - I found myself in registration. I had recently choked down my second Gastrografin dose and it had done something it hadn't done before: It made me queasy. Still, I kept the bile down and tried my best to look alive, for fear of being taken to the morgue.

The woman who took my information down was the same one who had done it in April, rather than the colorful-dressed one. She (not surprisingly) didn't recognize me. At least, until she saw my street address, and the unholy-to-pronounce French name of the place I'm living in. She looked back and forth between the PC screen and me a few times, then said "Oohhhh, I remember you!"

While I was changing into hospital duds, I heard colorful-dress lady walk into the waiting room and call my name. Someone there informed her of my location, and she left my third Gastrografin dose, with orders that various waiting-room people interpreted as "Don't drink." and "Do drink.", leaving me in something of a quandary. I decided "don't" was the safer option.

A few minutes later colorful-dress lady came back, dressed in somber gray sweater and black slacks. I'm gonna have to stop calling her "colorful-dress lady" if this keeps up. She led me to where the IV was to be set up and asked all the standard questions while I slugged down the lemon drink from Hell. The last question was "Have you had any reactions to IVs in the past?"

I said "Not so far." she tapped at a corner of the paper she was holding, laughed and nodded. Evidently they keep a track record.

I was attended to by interns during the actual examination. A young woman set up the IV. She was horrified by the red marks on my arm, I had to explain to her that it was from shaving, not anything infectious. Twice. I even showed her my hairy arm for contrast.

She later helped me into position on the machine's moving table. As I was being moved in, I closed my eyes due to that laser which was zipping between my legs and up my chest, rather like a nonviolent version of that James Bond scene.

While my eyes were closed, a male voice came out of nowhere and startled me. Startled me more when I open my eyes and there's this guy standing there, just a few feet away. He apologized for scaring me. He was another intern, he did the IV-line-to-machine connection part.

After he retreated to the control room, he had need to tell me something, which he did over the intercom. The contrast between the clear "Breathe in... and hold." of the machine and the barely-understandable staticy intercom makes me think the actual scanner is the only new thing here.

Post-scan, after he removed the needle, a voice came from the control room asking about something I didn't catch. The male intern said "No, we didn't." and a really angry response began to issue from the control room - loud enough that I didn't need the intercom to hear it - before the guy broke into a wicked grin and said "Just kidding! I did it!" The female intern seemed slightly less amused, but still appreciative. Ah, teacher torment.

On my way out towards the blood collection, colorful-dress lady stopped in the hall to say goodbye to me. I thought that was nice.

The waiting room was packed to capacity (beyond, actually, since one wheelchair-bound person wasn't taking up a chair) before the guy in front of me got up and complained that he'd seen (before I got there) the bloodwork guy leave and not come back. Wish I'd known that before. The guy in front of me, the guy after me, and me, uh, I got sneaked down the back corridor into the regular blood collection area. I left by the front way, crossing through the regular waiting room. I wonder if anyone there wondered where I came from - or the two guys who must have followed me, for that matter.

(Flu shot in two months time. Given the IVs and that, this is trivial. I scoff before the pokiness.)

A short one though. I recently got a paper from MSI, checking (rather weakly, IMHO, but this isn't the place for a rant) to make sure I had really received medical services that had been billed in my name. It's a random screening thing - if a person has anything chronic or requiring followup, they'll likely get one of these. It's the simplest form I've ever filled out, just checked a "no" box (asking if I'd had to pay out-of-pocket for anything) and signed my name.

The second-simplest form was a ten(ish) page survey about the cancer care I received. A funny thing - due to confidentiality of medical records, the hospital's own survey-takers had access to my name and address, but not my medical history. (For which I'm very grateful.) Thus, the first question was basically "Are you really receiving cancer treatment, or is it just follow-up? Or have you just never had cancer and this is all a mistake?"

Sitting down for a long haul, I readied myself to do the ten pages. I answered 'follow-up only' to the first question, then looked at the next instruction block. "If you have answered 'follow-up only', please put survey in envelope and mail. Do not answer the other questions. Any comments may be written in the designated area on the bottom of page 10."

Wow, that was easy.

Stop one... well, stop zero because it's not medical. Outside my preferred magazine shop, a guy passed me by singing something incomprehensible and leering at me. Ah, dinky towns like Port Hawkesbury have coyotes roaming the streets and eating housecats, dinky cities like Halifax just have crazies roaming the streets. Probably eating housecats, too.

I went into the magazine shop and was almost immediately confronted by a female employee who was tall, had red hair, and was very happy to see someone. "How are you doing?!"

I didn't say anything, sure that I wasn't the one being spoken to. Doubt lingered enough that I turned around. No one was behind me. Oh. So I hesitantly said, "Fine, how are you?"

She responded, "Great!" and kept on working.