Another date with the giant magnetic donut

 

So in a couple of days time I'll be in this machine again. This will be the sixth scan I've had (I've had pretty much all the scans you can have now, MRI, CT, Ultrasound, even an endoscopy - something I hope I never have to go through again as that was more traumatic than my recent gall bladder op). 

Switching between two hospitals in our locale (I guess we're lucky we get the choice of multiple places to go for these) and with the COVID restrictions still in place, I'm really not looking forward to another round of tests, prodding, poking and all the other things just to try and work out why my Liver is misbehaving. 

Most of all I just want closure, to put the last year behind me and get on with living a healthy and active life without some horrible background fear that one of my (remaining) vital organs is going to crap out on me (particularly my liver, as I really am attached to the old thing - and kinda rely on it quite heavily as do we all - Gall Bladder? Not so much, don't miss it at all!)

Again I have to credit the NHS with keeping on top of all this, and also following up very quickly when their workloads must be off the charts at the moment. I was contacted last week with the results from my ultrasound (from earlier in the week), and sorted out with an MRI a few days later. That's the kind of thing we need the NHS for and I can't imagine a situation where private healthcare would be a better alternative to this. 

For now, I'm wondering what's going to happen next. I'm morbidly looking into will services, still trying to stay active, eat healthy, almost like I'm doing what I did before my Gall Bladder op (getting 'match fit' in case I need to go into hospital for anything more long-term than scans). The stress and worry are another thing (and yeah, blogging about it is a safety valve for me - as crazy as it sounds, even with good folk around me I can't really talk about this stuff with them, as by now the shutters come down and I can tell that no one really wants to hear 'ongoing health worries' as a conversation opener). 

Most of all what's infuriating me is that I've always towed the line with my health. Even in my wayward younger years I was never the sort of person to binge drink, binge eat, or go without some form of exercise - I've been a vegetarian for nearly 40 years, I've been teetotal for 25 and yet here I am. 

I guess the lesson to take away from all this is "Just live your life. Live it. Don't spend years worrying about your weight, what you eat, what exercise you do, just get on with living your life because you never know when you're going to be unable to"