Pre-Op

                                     

                      

I went to a clinic this past Saturday morning in order to have all of the tests done that are needed for my upcoming surgery. These things are usually done at the hospital in which the surgery takes place, but I went to a walk-in clinic that was suggested by the surgeon’s office because the surgery won’t actually be performed in a hospital and I don’t have a primary care physician. The surgery will be performed at an outparcel building of a hospital that’s used exclusively for surgery and called a “center”.

The above x-ray was taken at the clinic as part of my pre-op requirements. It clearly shows the stent in my aorta to the right of my spine. I always envisioned the aorta to be pencil thin, but it’s actually quite wide in diameter. Consequently, the stent looks huge to me. I was never able to identify the stent in past CT Scans because I was always looking for something much smaller, and the CT Scans didn’t seem to produce as clear an image as the one on this x-ray. I guess it’s a case of something that was hidden in plain sight. Still, I think that it’s a pretty cool picture.

Part of me can’t believe that something that large has been attached to the high pressure artery that sits so close to my heart. It looks like a large alien worm. Perhaps Sigourney Weaver will come and visit me in the hospital if something goes wrong. Wait…she killed those things.