In a week of wonders and wee miracles we’ll just have to wait to see how it all pans out - Susan Morrison

It’s been a week of wonders and wee miracles. It was scan time with the NHS, which means they sent out the contrast stuff to drink in advance.
'The receptionist smothered a smile watching me do what I like to call 'Riverdance: Holding back the Stream',' says Susan Morrison'The receptionist smothered a smile watching me do what I like to call 'Riverdance: Holding back the Stream',' says Susan Morrison
'The receptionist smothered a smile watching me do what I like to call 'Riverdance: Holding back the Stream',' says Susan Morrison

Naturally, I misread the instructions. Again.

You’re supposed to mix it with half a pint of fluid before driving to the hospital. I downed half a litre.

It's not entirely my fault. Why does the grand old lady of the NHS stick to Imperial measures in some things? Well, she’s 75 this year. Perhaps like me she never quite managed the transition to metric.

Anyway, this confusion made quite the difference to my notoriously tiny bladder.

Before setting off for the Western General I checked the traffic obsessively. Ferry Road can be a car park with a nice view of the castle. Don’t tell anyone, but I have a little plastic bottle in the car, just in case. No, I have no idea how I would use it.

By the time I parked it was time to run. I raced up to the CT Unit like a rugby winger dodging and weaving past wheelchairs, little old ladies and people handcuffed to prison officers (yes).

Something was unusual, but I didn’t nail it until the receptionist smothered a smile watching me do what I like to call “Riverdance: Holding back the Stream”. They had no masks on.

It’s glorious. After three long years, they get to work without a mask. Everyone seemed almost giddy, even giggly, especially when the radiographer reminded me that the contrast dye they inject gives you hot flushes and a warm glow in your gusset.

Well, I said. At my age a hot flush is an everyday experience, and at least the sudden warmth is just a sensation.

Oddly, I also get an overwhelming taste of Victory Vs in my mouth. I dutifully reported this as a side effect, but the young radiographer didn’t know what I was talking about. What happened to Victory-Vs?

Scan complete and now we wait with the Howler Monkeys of Anxiety for the results.

Then, another magical moment on a miraculously golden day. A tram slid to a halt at the stop at Constitution Street. The doors opened to allow fare-paying passengers aboard.

This is excellent news. It means we can stop rescuing tourists from the middle of Leith Walk. They’ve been waiting at what looked like live tram stops, then been bamboozled by the trams rolling in and the trams rolling out, doors firmly shut, leaving our visitors abandoned on a sort of desert island.

Would’ve been nice to get a bit of royal ribbon snipping. Even as a bit of a republican I must admit that the late Queen was always the right choice for a few well chosen words, a safely wielded pair of scissors or a champagne bottle smashed on the hull of a newly-named ship.

Mind you, we might have got the new Duke of Edinburgh and hardly anyone knows what he looks like, so that might have ended horribly. In the end, we got a councillor, and they’re almost as familiar as royals with cutting things.

They do look majestic. The trams, that is, not our councillors. No offence.

Well, they’re finally here. Will we love the trams? Let's see how it all pans out and wait for the results. Like my scan.