Many years ago I worked as a biomedical engineer and one particular job was working on a new ultrasound machine. We were working on a design that would work better than typical machines on patients who, for whatever reason, were overweight. At one point management thought we were ready for a first round of testing. Gordon, in his infinite wisdom, decided to take the prototype with him over a weekend for real world testing. As fate would have it, his somewhat overweight daughter was pregnant. And yes, on Monday he brought in the tape … the machine recorded the entire procedure. We gathered around to watch.

About two minutes into the procedure …

And this is when the fetus went into distress so we stopped.

Ok, so what are the takeaways here?

• Gordon is a schmuck
• Ultrasounds are not inherently safe
• Three weeks later when Gordon took the machine home to re-test with new software, I gave my notice

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I showed up for my 1:15 PM radiation treatment on time today. With a full bladder. Yes, I do what I am told.

Turns out one of the two radiation machines was not functioning properly and they were trying to run all the appointments on one machine. The broken one was the one I am scanned on …  🙁 We were given the offer to skip today and add a day at the end of our treatment; I decided to hold out for extra frequent scanner miles and a free drink.

Once they said the engineers were working on the machine, I knew we were in trouble.

After an hour and a half, keeping my bladder full, thank you very much, they called me. They actually took me to my usual machine, the broken one. All I could think about was the ultrasound machine from so many years ago … Did they re-calibrate the massive radiation monster I was about to lie under? Did they fully test whatever fix they needed to do? Don’t they first want to take that skinny guy in the waiting room who never talks?

I am met by two young women technicians I have never met before. The routine is the same, I get on my knees on the table, drop my pants around my thighs and lie face down. I lie there with my lack of belly not really hanging through the big opening in the table and my junk in a cup. I lift my hips, somehow my briefs go down and the machine swings around over me.

A green cross-hair is projected on me and they need to line up my three tattoos with the green lines. This is done by the techs grabbing the sheet I am lying on and pulling. Usually they need to move me just a bit and three or four pulls and we are all set. These two were not so adept, I finally said that this is all wrong and we started again. I shifted into what I felt like was the correct position. That did not seem to work too well for them either.

After another couple of pulls I simply said …

My bare ass can’t be that distracting.

Want to bet?

Nicest thing said to me in years …