So apart from needing a CT (formerly known as CAT) scan....I think they are really an awesome spectacle.
If you have never heard about them they work kinda like a stack of x rays each taking a slice view of your body and piecing together the whole thing....after some processing, even in 3d.
To get a nice contrast of vessels, the digestive tract and other body parts they give you a Drink....if you can call it that....of a barium sulfate suspension.....mine was called apple smoothie...it was neither apple nor smooth....after you chug almost a liter of the "smoothie" they lay you down on a table and hook up an IV. The machine then starts to slide you through the beams of radiation, first taking what seemed like a whole body xray...it showed lungs, heart, ribs...you get it. Then on a second pass they force the IV contrast into your arm and you get this warm woosh through your whole body. The machine starts the scan over again, only this time more deeply.
After about 30 seconds or so you are done.
My scan was Chest, abdomen and pelvis and yielded about 135 or so pictures layer by layer. So I can say to a certainty that I am NOT a heartless, gutless, spineless....anything. I have pictures to prove it.
At the end I got to scroll through the images like one of those flip page books and see how the whole scan progressed. The organs were pointed out to me but I could not tell what I was seeing well enough to note any tumors separate from normal tissue.
I forgot to ask if I could get copies but I have a feeling this won't be my last one.....
Just thought I'd share the coolest thing I have done in awhile
