The Scan (3)

After a ten week wait, I finally have my CT scan tomorrow. I've never waited this long for a scan before, it's been very stressful and has really stoked up my anxiety. It doesnt really help to learn that there are three million other people on NHS waiting lists in the UK at the same time. You have to get through the dark nights and difficult days yourself as best you can.

I've tried to take it one day at a time: some days have been bad, others have been better, few have actually been good. I found myself putting things off because I just couldnt commit to them when I could be called in to the hospital at short notice. The whole process grinds you down remorselessly. It's a type of torture that you have to do your best to resist. And when some other problem comes into your life, as inevitably happens, your stress levels go off the scale very easily.

Still, I've made it through the ten weeks reasonably intact - with plenty of help and support from friends and family. The scan itself, as far as medical procedures go, isnt too terrible. You sit and drink a liquid with metals in for an hour, then your take off your clothes and are laid on a narrow bed that sticks out from the scan machine. The operators retire to a glass fronted control room and the narrow bed slides you inside the machine. The machine whirrs and tells you to breathe in, hold your breath and breathe. It spins noisily around you for a while, stops, gives more instructions, spins again, stops and then slides you out.

You're done, you can go and get changed. Then the really bad waiting starts - for the results.

Scan

 

 

Awkward

on the skyline

a turreted house

the letter in my grasp

paint blisters

from the leaden door

one twist of the handle

and a draught sucks me in

overturned chairs

table laid for dinner

stove empty

 

the threshold

where steps echo down

to the knife-man basement

I crush the letter in my hand

and descend

a room

a single bed

I strip and lie supine

arms stretched beyond my head

 

Hold your breath

 

the wind howls

and the house spins around me

clothes broken plates and chairs fly

to the rattling walls and stick

my bed stays firm

the wind roars

and the house turns

every place I've lived screeches past my eyes

the wind eases

 

Breathe

 

 

 

 

This gothic poem was written during my long weeks of waiting.