CAT scan finally scheduled!

The nurse just came in and told me that my elusive CAT scan has finally been scheduled for 7:30 tonight. Until then, I am to be NPO, i.e. not to eat or drink anything. At least I have the IV line still in and am getting saline. But this will be a LONG wait.

This scan is very important, as it will (hopefully) tell what that mystery shadow on my last chest x-ray was. Best case scenario would be that the scan finds nothing and that shadow was just an artifact of the portable x-ray machine they used. Worst case scenario would be that what the x-ray showed were really metastases of my breast cancer. This would catapult me from a stage IIa early breast cancer patient to a stage IV terminal breast cancer patient. See why I call this "worst scenario"? Needless to say we're really hoping for the best case scenario. 

It was odd, as the infectious disease specialist, who saw me first, seemed to believe that tumors were the more likely of the options. The oncologist, who followed a few minutes later, seemed to think that the infectious disease guy thought it more likely to be some viral thing. They had done a viral panel, but those only detect a handful of viruses, anyway, and they are prone to false negative results. 

So it seems that my growing impatience and urgent appeals to the doctors finally did kick things into gear a bit more. Ha! The CAT scan is finally scheduled. That is good. Tomorrow I am supposed to have another doppler scan for my DVT, just in case that is getting worse.  Provided that I 'pass' both tests, I finally may get to go home tomorrow. 

Needless to say I'm a bit anxious about the CAT scan, as I have a lot riding on it. Two words come to mind: test anxiety. It feels kind of like waiting for a big, important test you must take -- when failing the test will have life-altering consequences. Literally.