CT Scan

This afternoon I had a CT scan in the basement of Hotel Dieu to check whether my prostate cancer has spread to my pelvic lymph nodes. Like the bone scan, it's unlikely they'll find anything, but they wanted to verify before starting treatment.

CT Scanner at Hotel Dieu

The process is fairly straightforward. Over a half-hour I drank a clear biochemical dye, then they inserted an IV needle and had me lie on the horizontal bed with my arms over my head. They had me hold my breath while the machine slid me through the "donut" a couple of times. Then they connected the IV to a bag of another kind of dye, which caused me to feel warm all through my torso and abdomen, and slid me through the machine again. The actual process, once it started, took maybe five minutes.

The last CT scan I had (other than the brief one that was part of the SPECT/CT bone scan last Friday) was in 1990, at KGH, with the most ancient CT scanner then still in operation in Ontario. This one was a heck of a lot faster.

I should hear the results early next week, or possibly the day after tomorrow.