Today I did an arterial surgery follow-up appointment at the University of Washington. UW didn’t do the surgery, but they’re far more convenient than Stanford, and they do have a baseline of pre-surgery testing I did in 2019.
For this evaluation, they did a CT scan followed by an exercise stress test followed by a visit to the doctor. The CT scan was more unpleasant than I remembered: First, my vein was scarred, so they had to poke through the scars, which hurts quite a bit.
Not as much, though, as when the indicator goes in. THAT stuff burns. They warn you, “It’ll feel warm, and you’ll feel like you peed your pants.” (This is true, because when the indicator reaches the groinal region, well, it makes it warm. The only time you feel that is when you pee your pants. Hence your brain interprets that as pee.) It doesn’t feel warm in the arm; it feels like red-hot needles pushing down the vein. Super unpleasant.