So This Is Interesting…

Sorry – thought I’d posted this via Blackberry & it didn’t work…

So one terrorism-related thing I worry about a bit is the old “nuke in the container loaded off the ship” gag. Especially since I work about 1 mile from a major container port.

Today, I’m a lot less worried about it…

The neck injury I have causes symptoms that are hard to distinguish from heart problems, so my doc decided a while ago that we’d just launch a pre-emptive set of tests, and makes me do a stress test every year or so.

This year, I got to do a ‘nuclear stress test’ in which they inject me with a radioactive isotope (technicium), and use the gamma rays to make really cool 3-D images of my heart.

So I can now attest that I do, in fact, have a heart. And that it works – it took just under 20 mins to get my heart rate up enough to finish the test.

But that’s not what was interesting (except to me and Tenacious G and one or two others, I’d guess).

What was interesting that there was a big sign that said that if I was going to the airport or the port, I needed to get a letter from the clinic.

So we’re scanning there well enough to catch someone mildly irradiated, like me. Nice. very nice.

I’m awaiting my new superpowers, and will report…

4 thoughts on “So This Is Interesting…”

  1. This year, I got to do a ‘nuclear stress test’ in which they inject me with a radioactive isotope (technicium), and use the gamma rays to make really cool 3-D images of my heart.

    I’ve had that, right after my stint in the ICU. (It’s called a Myoview, I think, though I could have transcribed it incorrectly.) Glad yours was OK (so was mine). I didn’t know that there was residual radioactivity or that an airport scanner would catch it. Yep, very interesting… and somewhat encouraging.

  2. My skiboots set off the alarm at Aspen airport two days after skiing through the remnants of an avalanche charge. They say it happens all the time.

    Roland

  3. So, can G find you in a dark room now, by the light of your unearthly greenish glow, or would she need a geiger counter?

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