THE MEDICAL TOUR - SCANS IN HOUSTON

Monday March 23, 1997 – Houston

We started off quite early – I didn’t sleep too well, wondering how the tests would go and was awake from about 4.00 am. The trip out to the airport was quicker than we thought it would be, so we had plenty of time out there before boarding our plane.

There were surprisingly few food outlets and so we thought we would have breakfast on the plan as the tucker had been quite good on the flight down from Pittsburgh. But for the first time I can ever recall, we were not offered food!! On an aircraft! In First Class!!! Not even a biscuit (or a cookie in US English)! Just orange juice – not even iced tea. June told us tht Continental, who we hadn’t used before, have cut out food service by and large.

So we were a bit peckish by the time we got to the our host's house at about midday New Orleans time. Their Mexican housekeeper, Laura, was there and gave us a couple of slices of toast to keep the wolf from the door. The area they live in is the very best in Houston and contains some incredible houses. The  house is huge – six bedrooms and eight bathrooms plus several public rooms and a gym set up for two above the garage housing their cars. But it is dwarfed by some of the mansions in the area. J says many of these gracious palaces are occupied by just two people. And of course the cars in the area reflect the wealth of the inhabitants. J and G have a pair of matching Mercedes 300 L coupes plus a Jeep Explorer as a runabout – they got rid of the Porsche some time back!

The furnishings of the house were not really to my taste – too much cluttered antique, but having said that it is a magnificent place and looks tremendous in a Harpers/Queen/Gracious Homes way. We are very comfortable and are getting on well with J & G.

But as we talk I can see what Matt said about us in Australia. G works, works out for two hours in his gym and sleeps (and counts his money of which there is a large mountain!). J meets him for lunch, waits for him to come home, works on the accounts and the trust funds, buys more an more beautiful things and travels (on her own with groups of strangers because G doesn’t really enjoy travelling.) Whilst that doesn't reflect our situation precisely, the focus on work was certainly an issue for me.

They both admit to being lonely and alienated in America and are looking forward to G’s early retirement (at some unspecified future time) when they plan to split their time between Cape Town and London. We had to wonder why they are bothering to wait. They are clearly very wealthy already with two properties in London, one in Cape Town and one in Houston plus trust accounts in all the exotic places, exquisite and valuable jewellery and furniture etc. what more could anyone want? I suppose it comes down to the simple fact that everybody feels they always need a little more.

We met G for lunch and were amused to note that although he will not eat any fat and only had a salad, he was the only one in the party to have desert – a very rich looking chocolate mousse with meringue. He didn’t waste and time and had organised the first of the MRI scans soon after lunch.  Although he had said in Cape Town that his equipment was superior to and more comfortable than the machinery on which I had my first scans in Cape Town. They seemed even more noisy and certainly took as long. 

Of course I do not fit into machines very well and cannot get my arms into the body cavity, so I had to lie with my arms above my head for about an hour and a half. It is amazing how painful that can be. Of course you cannot move your body during this period so all in all it is not the most pleasurable experience at the best of times. To make matters worse, G decided to get a better picture by using a magnetic coil inserted close to the prostate. Not something I would recommend – and I gather it did not produce anything spectacular either.

When we spoke to the G in the evening, he said that there was no doubt that there was “something” in the prostate but he thought it was contained within the capsule. He said he was certain it was cancer and, as I understood it, that the tumour was probably less than one centimetre. What he didn’t mention was that he wanted me to have another MRI run the following morning, for reasons he never specified precisely. Poor old Rab was a bit upset and didn’t sleep too well – I think she was hoping until then that it had all been a ghastly mistake.