"A Scan to Dye For"

By Jerry Zezima

If there is one thing I don’t want to get off my chest, it’s hair, which is usually ripped out by the roots when I have a medical procedure.

What I do want to get off my chest is an aortic aneurysm, which is why I recently had a CAT scan, at the end of which my chest hair was — sorry, you guessed wrong — not ripped out by the roots because a very nice and gentle radiologic technologist named Tammy felt my pain and prevented me from having it.

The scan, officially called a “gated CTA,” was ordered by my cardiologist, who last year at this time said I needed open-heart surgery because my aneurysm was large enough to be a float in the Thanksgiving Day parade.

The afternoon before the procedure, which was scheduled to be performed early the next morning, the surgeon called to say I didn’t need an operation after all. What saved me was a CAT scan that showed the aneurysm was no larger than a birthday balloon and should be left alone but closely monitored.

That’s why I had this recent scan.

“You’re very lucky,” said a personable registered nurse named Lourdy, who painlessly slipped a needle into a vein in my right arm so I could get an IV with dye that would flow into me during the scan.

“Are you good with contrasts?” she asked.

“You mean between good and evil?” I said. “I hope I’m on the right side of that one.”

“I was talking about the dye,” said Lourdy, who complimented me on my knees when, after donning paper pants and an open gown, I knelt down to tie my sneakers so I wouldn’t slip on the smooth floor.

“It’s my first day without Velcro,” I told her.

“I dislocated my right knee over the summer dancing at a wedding,” Lourdy said. “I needed surgery. The therapy was intense.”

“You had therapy in tents? Not even in a building?” I spluttered. “What kind of treatment was that?”

Lourdy smiled and walked me to the room where I would have the scan.

“Will I be in a tube?” I asked.

“It’s more like a doughnut,” she answered.

“Jelly or glazed?” I inquired.

“Glazed,” Lourdy said.

“Just like my eyes,” I responded.

I was then greeted by Tammy, who asked if I had any questions.

“Yes,” I said. “If this is a gated scan, how come it’s not in a gated community?”

“We moved,” said Tammy, who explained that gated actually refers to “gait,” like rhythm.

“I don’t have rhythm,” I said.

“Yes, you do,” Tammy said. “It may be white-boy rhythm, but you have it. At least your heart does. That’s what the scan will show.”

After I was asked to lie down, Tammy stuck small adhesive electrodes on my hairy chest.

“Most guys would rather have open-heart surgery without anesthesia than have these things ripped off,” I said.

“Are you one of those guys?” Tammy asked.

“Yes,” I admitted.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “It won’t hurt.”

Then I slid into the doughnut, raised my arms above my head and, listening to instructions, breathed deeply, exhaled, held it, then breathed normally. This was repeated several times.

The final part of the scan involved the injection of dye into my entire body. At first I didn’t feel anything. Then came a blast of heat, from head to toes, before it was all over.

“That was quite a sensation,” I told Tammy. “I felt a warmth in my paper pants.”

“All the way down to your tush,” she stated correctly. “Now comes the scary part.”

Tammy began to remove the electrodes from my chest. It was quick and painless.

“I hope the scan shows that you don’t need open-heart surgery,” she said.

“I hope so, too,” I replied. “And thanks for making sure this wasn’t a hairy situation.”

Copyright 2025 by Jerry Zezima