The scan

After a long time perhaps years,the three sisters sat down to have a chat about a procedure that the doctor ordered. Doubts rage in our mind,we have different concerns and the only way out is to speak to the one doctor we trust. So we do and our hearts are a little at ease. 

The morning is an ordeal,I am sick with worry,memories of previous ct scan rooms haunt me. Claustrophobia sets in ,I pace the floor of my house,cook with a vengeance and can't sleep. Then it's time to get my mother off to the scan place. All three sisters gather with one brother in law (two of them are on permanent driving duty) and we wait while our mother is loaded on to an ambulance and whisked off....we follow in the car. One sister as usual is a picture of calm.the other is tight with tension,while I oscillate between calmness and stress. 

Not for the first time I thank German engineering. The scan machine is sophisticated,and non threatening. It's been ten years....I took my 85 year old father  to get a scan done and history repeats itself. I have a morbid fear of the age eight five. It was at this stage that my father got a stroke and went downhill all the way. As we celebrated my mothers 85, all the anxiety associated with that age came back and unfortunately I was once again confronted with that dismal feeling of deja vu

I don a radioactive protection suit and sit with my mother for the duration of the scan and then we get back. I am as usual running on tension fuel ,sleep deprived but high on stress. The mother as usual rises to the occasion and is not as stressed. Does having all her daughters around her give her confidence,does she's just not have to worry that I am doing all this alone. Perhaps,I will never know,we don't have such discussions in our family but for now I am glad of company and support.