In The Navy (FT “C” School), Part 3

After week 2 in the Hospital, the Docs decided to schedule me for a CAT scan in some Veteran’s facility over in New London. It took several days to get the scan scheduled and my friends were great to come and visit me. They were more scared than I was.

The CAT scan was the most excruciating thing I had ever been trough in my life, probably because I was already so weak and hurting anyway. I felt like ass to start with, and being transported by ambulance (first and last time ever) in the hazed state I was in was awful. Being out in the cold fresh fall air did actually wake me up a bit, as I was moved from the Hospital to the ambulance and then to the Vets building after the trip over.

I had caught a second wind by the time we got inside and I was rolled into the CAT scan room. The technology in there had my interest and my adrenalin was up for sure. I was asking the tech there questions about how it all worked and what the end product was. The guy was Asian and didn’t have a great command of the English language. He looked at my forearms as he was strapping me onto the plank for the scan and commented that they were deformed, “Deformed eh?” That has stuck with me my whole life, thinking I have these deformed forearms. They look FINE to me, you ass!! Anyway, I was more alert than I had been in a week during all of this. I was doing great…until the shot.

They shot me up with a turkey baster sized syringe full of irradiated barium liquid, then some more. It’s still commonly used today. It makes the CAT scan turn out better visually. That crap they shot me up with was vile and in only minutes, I was nauseous. As the injection goes in, you feel it, the cold liquid at first, then the burn as it works it’s way up your arm from the IV. Then up to the shoulder and into your chest. Once into the heart, the whole body immediately feels like it is sinking, down, down…the center of the burning winds up in your gut.

I had lost over 20 pounds in about 2 and a half weeks. I was feverish, full of barium, sick, tired, but not asleep. I just wanted to die and be done with all this.

I was strapped down to a plank and fed into this noisy whirring doughnut. Anyone claustrophobic would freak out. I was in and out of consciousness, so I have no clue how long it all lasted. I don’t remember anything more really, until I was being put back into the van for the trip back to the Groton Naval Station Hospital.

I remember it was sunny and the air was cold, crisp and dry. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been in the sun and mentally paused to relished it landing directly on my skin, feeling the warmth of it. In retrospect, I would soon be going much longer periods of time without any direct sunlight. So that whole feeling seems kind of wimpy to me now. I had much yet to learn about isolation, but that will come later.