Yesterday we went to get my hip and hand x-rays at the Imaging Center. (Brad’s images are below!) They don’t take appointments for x-rays, so we just had to show up and hope it wasn’t a busy time. Well we sorely miscalculated! We arrived at 12:30 figuring it’d take an hour or hour and a half maximum to get my x-rays done.
The waiting room was packed, and that should have been a clue to us. But we sat down, I downloaded the next Terry Pratchett book, and we waited. And we waited. And waited. And waited. After about 2 hours of waiting, we were finally checked in fully (getting my insurance, signing forms, etc). Then we had to wait nearly another half hour before they called me back to take the x-rays!
If you remember from the recent posts about my blood draw experience, my left arm has had a lot of pain and this has affected my ability to go out with my service dogs. I had decided to take Alice with me since Hestia hasn’t tried heeling on my right yet and I can carry Alice in just my right arm (I need two arms to carry Hestia). Alice was great with all the waiting. She moved around occasionally on my lap to get comfy, but was pretty happy to just chill there on my lap.
When it was my time to get the x-rays, since she was doing so well I figured I’d try her out in the x-ray room. Brad was waiting just outside the door, so if she did poorly, I could just hand her to him.
The x-ray machines are the newer type where humans don’t need to wear lead capes (though can choose to). But the tech was worried since Alice is so small and I had to get a lot of x-rays done. Luckily they had an infant lead shield there for us to use! It was the perfect size to cover all of Alice except for her head.
We did the hand x-rays first, and I sat on a stool and put my right arm onto the x-ray surface. Alice stayed on my lap with my left arm wrapped around her and the lead shield over top of her. They had to take like 6 x-rays of my right hand and wrist. She was so cool and calm that the tech even remarked how well she was doing! She was shocked that it was Alice’s first time!
Then we did my left hand, and I held Alice with my right arm. Easy peasy again.
Finally it was time for hip x-rays. These were the ones I was worried about, since I didn’t know where Alice would go. Luckily the tech and I figured out Alice could sit on my upper chest and be fine there. So she sat there, with the lead cape draped over her. She was a little more stressed this time because I think more of the lead cape weight was on her than when she was lying down and it was partially on my arm. But not too stressed, just a little bit of panting was all. They had to roll the table around a lot with us on it to get the x-rays. Hip x-rays were fast. They did only four I think.
I am so proud of Alice and how well she did with the x-rays! I had been very nervous about it, but she proved that she is a little champion!
We were happy to be heading out of there, but when we got to the car we realized someone had parked over the line into the access aisle so Brad couldn’t get into the van! We left them a card explaining access aisles, and I pulled the van out for Brad to get into.
Next we headed to the UPS store to drop off some Amazon returns. When we got there, there was someone parked entirely in the access aisle! Like it was their own personal parking space! So I went over to leave a card for them. While I was doing so, the driver came out. She insisted that since the other accessible spots were taken and she had a handicapped placard, she had every right to park in the access aisle. I tried in vain to explain what access aisles are and why they are important. She was pretty upset with me, and in the end handed me back my card and drove off.
So I headed inside and did our returns. When I came out, a different car was parked in the access aisle! So I approached them to explain the situation. The passenger was really upset and yelled at me, but the driver apologized, said she hadn’t been looking when she pulled in, and that she would re-park when her passenger got out. Which she did, yay!
That’s three times in a row that people were parking in the access aisles!!!!
We had one more stop to make—we had a return to drop off at Fed Ex. We headed to Office Depot since they have a Fed Ex drop-off in their store, but they wouldn’t take it because it had a battery in it. So then we had to drive 15 min more to the local Fed Ex store to drop it off.
By the time we got home, we were soooooo exhausted! We left the house at like 12:15 and didn’t get home until after 4!
Brad got some pictures to share of our adventure, though sadly none of us in the x-ray room since that was just me, Alice, and the tech. I am wearing a pink shirt and Japanese Chin leggings. Alice is a sable and white tiny Japanese Chin wearing a purple vest. Brad is wearing light blue and white with a skeleton hand brooch (for the x-rays!). There are pictures of me coming out of the x-ray room, pictures of us in front of the imaging center, and pictures of bad parking.
