Today I went to the S. Mark Taper Foundation Imaging Center to get a bone density scan update. At last count, I had mild osteopenia, which is an early pre-cursor type thing to osteoporosis. Why this is an issue at this tender age of ehm-ehm1 is because Celiac disease has osteoporosis as one of its side effects. Therefore my doctor feels that it's appropriate for me to get a bone density scan every 2-3 years.
The test is less traumatic than a physical. You lie down on a bed, and a scanner thing slowly images your spine (which looks like a tapeworm, believe it or not) and your pelvis and hips. As soon as I get a copy of the images, I will upload, of course. I mean, doesn't everyone want to see my spinetapeworm?
The screening takes all of 5 minutes, and does not require removal of clothes, insertion of cold instruments into recalcitrant orifices, needles, meds, wiping of boobs with mammowipes, anesthetics or anything else. You don't even need to take your shoes off.
I recommend it for women as a means to catch early signs of osteoporosis, a bit like the mammo only less horrifying and humiliating.
Thankfully Cedars has a new customer service policy that you will not wait anywhere more than 10 minutes, so I was done relatively quickly. The fire alarm kept going off, though, quickly followed by a mechanical voice that yelled IGNORE. FIRE. ALARM. IGNORE. FIRE. ALARM. Again with the tempting of fate... I did mention to one of the receptionists that I hoped no one would have a seizure as a result of the bright strobe lights, and she said she herself has seizures and they are in fact sometimes triggered by strobe lights. No disco dancing for her.
As a side note, the place was full of copies of The Jewish Journal. Anti-semites, you can suck it!
Anyway, the test was incident-free, but of course I forgot to remove my wrist band and ran a couple of errands on my way home looking like an escaped mental patient. Some things just can't be helped, I guess.
