Tests Performed at Reston Hospital

Phew. What a day! I wish I could have told everyone the plans, but I worry about leaving our home unattended. Best to not let any bad people on to it that we are out.

It started around 5:30 AM. Ryan needed to be ready for transport to Reston Hospital at 6:30 AM. It was tight, but I had him ready when the EMTs arrived and we were on our way by 6:45. My thanks to Mary Mitchell and Paula Yocom for setting this all up. The day was beautifully coordinated!

Dexascan Image via Wikipedia

The first test, a dexascan, was at a satellite building of the hospital. A dexascan is nothing more than measuring bone density. It’s a non-invasive, low-level x-ray type of procedure that is often used for older people with osteoporosis. The actual test itself took less than 15 minutes. Getting Ryan into (and maintaining) position was actually more difficult.

From there we loaded Ryan back into the ambulance and drove across a parking lot to the main building. He went to radiology and had his left forearm x-rayed. Remember, this is the one that broke during therapy earlier in the year. My guess is it will showed that it is completely healed, but not at a good angle.

Without Ryan even leaving the x-ray room, a technician came down and drew his blood. We then headed over to another room in the same wing of the hospital to a doppler scan. The gentle way to put it is this uses ultrasound to measure blood flow through the veins.  In reality, they are looking for blood clots that have formed and pose a danger. We had both arms and legs scanned. From start to finish it, took about two hours.  Preliminarily, his veins look good.

We stayed in the same room and in less than five minutes a cardiologist was there. We had an EKG performed on him to make sure his low heart rate at night was not caused by something serious. Everything looked good, but will need to be reviewed in more detail.

Within minutes we were on our way home, arriving an hour before my best guess that morning. Just an incredible job done by the people at Reston Hospital and Mary. The coordination was flawless.