Kennedy News and MediaA student having a CT scan to find out whether she had a life-changing illness was comforted by the results in more ways than one.
Not only did the scan show that Alexandra Michael, 20, did not have ulcerative colitis – a chronic condition where the colon and rectum become inflamed – but it also showed her dog popping by to say ‘hi’ as well.
After having the scan on February 13, Alexandra was relieved when her surgeon confirmed there was nothing abnormal in the scan while giving her the results a week later.
Kennedy News and MediaIt wasn’t until she took a copy of the scan home, however, that Alexandra saw something which made her look twice – her adorable pooch’s face staring lovingly up at her.
Alexandra first noticed the familiar outline of her dog’s face when she brought the print-out of the scan – which showed a cross section of her pelvis and her sacrum, a bone at the base of the spine – home.
The student nurse, who lives in Victoria, Melbourne, believes the dog closely resembles her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel called George – although she has another dog of the same breed, Audrey, who she also thinks bares an uncanny resemblance to the one in the scan.
Kennedy News and MediaAlexandra explained:
I was showing my mum the scans, and I was looking at it, and mum goes ‘can you see anything wrong with them?’ CT scans are quite hard to read, but if something is totally abnormal they stick out fairly easily.
So I was very grateful when I was going through and I was like, ‘the only thing that’s abnormal and shouldn’t be there is a dog in my pelvis’.
I’m a dog person through and through, so we pretty much both just p*ssed ourselves laughing, and we were like ‘no, that’s 100% a dog in my scan!’.
Kennedy News and MediaAlexandra, who studies at La Trobe University in Victoria, works part-time as a phlebotomist taking blood samples. It was when she had tests of her own done that she noticed she had symptoms linked with ulcerative colitis.
While her surgeon confirmed there was nothing abnormal in the scan, the student nurse still requires surgery within the next 50 days to confirm she doesn’t have the condition. If she does have it, she’ll need to take medication for the rest of her life to help treat it.
However, seeing the dog in the scan took her mind off the seriousness of what else it could have shown, with Alexandra saying: ‘I could have been terminally ill and filled with tumours, but I could just see the dog.’
She continued:
I was just 100% thinking about that, because that’s where my mind goes. I had a patient that came in [last week] with a PTSD service dog, and I think I spent the entire appointment talking about the dog.
Kennedy News and MediaAlexandra later shared a photo of the scan to a social media group about dogs ‘because they’re [her] people and [will] understand it’, where it has attracted nearly 4,000 likes and comments.
She said she received a ‘good reaction’ on there, in contrast to the ‘eye rolling’ her friends exhibited when she showed them.
Although I’m not sure why anybody would eye roll an adorable pooch – obviously they’re just jealous one never showed up in their own CT scans.
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A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).