Aniseed.

I hated aniseed balls as a kid, I hated the sambuca I was given on my stag night, and I hated the x-ray dye I drank this morning.

Unlike last night however I had the wit to leave brushing my teeth until after I had drunk it.

I passed on the "mixing with juice" option and went for the minimal "add to 300mm of water". Although this only serves to make the time taken to get it down even longer; a small bottle of foulness now becomes half a pint. Once downed however, and bereft of any breakfast, we made our way through the park to the hospital.

Wherein I was presented with a large jug of x-ray dye mixed with juice. Excellent.

After I had slowly drunk the latest incarnation of this nauseating beverage I was led through to the CT Room in which sat a large Stargate attached to a long thin bed. The Radiology team were great and explained what was to come as the bed slowly moved up and positioned me half way through the scanner.

I had to hold my hands above my head as, rapidly retreating to an adjacent room, the Radiologist fired up The Beast and the bed started to move. An automated message told me to hold my breath and as I did so my torso was slowly drawn through the large hoop. This happened twice and was utterly painless. No problem.

Emerging from her bunker the Radiologist then set me up for the next scan which was not to be quite as simple. First a needle into the arm, swiftly followed by a shot of saline - the cold hand sensation from my blood transfusion returned for a moment - before I was hooked up to the x-ray dye pump. In spite of the blood tests and transfusions I am pretty sure I won't get completely used to the needles going in, this one seemed to sting more than others. Maybe it gets worse the more it is done as scar tissue builds up at favoured access points. I hope not.

Raising my arm up into the air to keep it out of the scanner I could see my blood slowly traveling up the tube towards the pump. The latent pressure in the tube not quite sufficient to keep the red stuff in. With the pump switched on my blood quickly returned to my body followed by a pressurised flow of iodine dye. It's ever so slightly warm and quickly works its way round your organs, or so I was told. Personally I didn't feel it going in or swilling around but when it gets to your kidneys a warming sensation makes it feel as though you're soiling yourself. The Radiologist assured me I wasn't as she retreated back to her room and initiated another two scans.

Procedure over and looking at the results of the scan it would appear that, as expected, my spleen is larger than it should be. Massive in fact. Whether this will reduce following treatment I do not know. And I'm not sure how large it has to get before they'll want to take it out. I am really, really hoping that I do not need to have a splenectomy. It would add another level of complication to my treatment and mean a lifetime of illness and poor immunity.

Having mentally accepted the inevitablity of chemotherapy, major surgery is a stop on my journey that I'd like to avoid. The choice is not mine to make and whether I have to make that stop or not will be revealed on Friday at my next consultation.

Until then its back to work and back to the waiting.