I had an isotope bone scan today…

I had the isotope bone scan today to find out if it is a stress fracture I have in my fibula. It wasn’t half as scary as the information I received the other day made it out to be. The worst thing was finding a car space at the hospital (twice!).

I turned up initially at 11am this morning. After waiting for a few minutes a nurse took me into a room that had a big scanner in it with a stretcher type bed thing attached to it. This scanner was like one of those big washing machine things you see on TV. Not as big as a CT machine… and not as scary at all. There was no control room and no screens… so it just seemed like a bed with a big circular thing attached at the end!

The nurse then gave me an injection in my right arm which was the dye (probably the isotope bit of the ‘isotope bone scan’ I guess???) that would travel through my body and into the bones in order to show up on the scan.

I then had to lie down and the scanner was moved so it was above my ankle and images were taken for about 15 mins. And that was it for the morning bit. I was told to keep away from small children (due to the chances of radiation) and make sure `I drank a couple of pints of water, before returning a couple of hours later.

Once I got back to the hospital in the afternoon I was taken again in to the same room and this time just had to lie in about 4 different positions as the scanner took the images. Each of these positions took about 20 minutes. I must admit, it wasn’t the most comfortable thing on the world. But only because I hate lying on my side!

The cool thing was that i could see the image actually forming on the screen b the scanner as the image was being taken. I know I’m no doctor but I’m sure what I could see looked like the image I found of a stress fracture on the web the other day.

The nurse also had a look and said t make sure I keep off of impact exercise until I get the results.

So, now the waiting game kicks off again. It should only be 10 days before I find out if it is actually a stress fracture of the fibula.

Till then, it’s more swimming for me!