As he woke in his suite in Claridge’s, Stone felt an overpowering tiredness. That was something new, something he did not like, and he did not know how to deal with it. He tried to calm his growing anxiety, but he paced his suite uneasily. He had been told not to eat for four hours before the scan, so he skipped lunch and even a glass of malt whisky.
It took him half an hour walking slowly through the London streets to reach the hospital. He felt better for the walk and was determined not to be intimidated by what he had been told about today’s procedure. It did not help as he was asked at the MRI reception to fill in a detailed questionnaire about his health and medical history as any form-filling was anathema to him.
He undressed in a side room and felt naked as he put on a hospital gown. The radiographer who was to conduct the scan met Stone as he came from the cubicle.
‘Mr Stone, I’m looking after you today. We are going to scan most of your body, bone structures and internal organs. The procedure in the scanner will take probably just over half an hour.’
‘You’re looking to see where the prostate cancer has spread. I’m getting a lot of pain, so I suspect you’ve got a lot to find.’
‘Well, let’s see how it goes. I just ask you to lie as still as you can; you will hear rattling noises from time to time, but please wear the headphones if you prefer to.’
‘No, let’s get on with it,’ Stone said with impatience at the whole procedure. He wanted to get this over.
‘It will take a short while after today for the results to be studied, and I will talk to your urologist about them too. I will send my report to him and your doctor in Brighton in three or four days. Please now make yourself comfortable.’
A nurse took Stone to the adjoining room and for the first time Stone saw the narrow tunnel with the scanner that he would be lying in head first. Claustrophobia was his dread. This would not be easy as he lay on the motorised bed that moved him inside the scanner. He closed his eyes and listened to the rattling sound that was all around him. For the next forty minutes he resisted using the panic button to get him out of this narrow, noisy space. But why was he doing this, why was he wasting his time here?
Stone dressed slowly, a difficult part of his diagnosis now completed, and he already knew what the results would show. This was not a place to linger – he left the cubicle, quickly walked past the nurse and radiographer without looking back.
His racing heart slowed as he walked back to Claridge’s, and he now just wanted to get out of this place. A short while later, his head was nodding as he was sitting in the back of a limousine to take him to Marine House.