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Come in! Take a seat. Doesn't that chair look comfy? Lets take a look into PET scan land....yay...(dripping sarcasm). Nothing is particularly terrible about having a PET scan done, it's just not my favorite thing to do for a couple of reasons. My Dr is in Scottsdale, so is the imaging place they use (I live and hour from Scottsdale), the scan process itself takes an hour and a half, and lastly I have to avoid pregnant women and children under the age of 12 for 6 hours after because I'm radioactive...you know that sounds like fun! Hehehe...I'm being silly. I'm so glad for this test and grateful for this technology, but you will understand my slight bitterness later on in this post.
***I will get to the results, I promise, but maybe you can get a better understanding of how I feel if you understand a bit more about the whole process. ***
What is a PET scan anyways? I had never heard of it before I had to have one. The one we did last Monday was my THIRD one. PET stands for Positron Emission Tomography and it can distinguish between normal cells and rapidly dividing cancer cells. I have a very elementary understanding of how it works, but here's a rundown of what happens during a PET scan appointment.
First of all you have to come in fasting so that your blood sugar is low. You get to sit down in a hospital recliner (like the one pictured above) and after some friendly small talk they "accesses" you. I have a port in my chest, so I get the needle stuck in there. (I'm used to it by now.) If you don't have a port they just stick your arm. After that poke she pricks your finger to make sure you blood sugar is low enough. I never have problems with this. My blood sugar will drop very fast after fasting just one meal.
Then comes in another person (in my case it is another lady) and she has the scary stuff. The radioactive glucose. That just sounds bad. She is wearing heavy duty gloves and has a syringe with warning labels all over it and is encased in a silver metal tube. Then she quickly injects it into my bloodstream. While you try not to think too hard about what you just got injected with or what it is doing inside of your body you get to lay in your comfy recliner for the better part of an hour. They give you a pillow and blanket, shut off the lights and tell you to move as little as possible. Right. I struggled with this the first time, but by now I'm a pro. Off to dreamland I go.
***I will get to the results, I promise, but maybe you can get a better understanding of how I feel if you understand a bit more about the whole process. ***
What is a PET scan anyways? I had never heard of it before I had to have one. The one we did last Monday was my THIRD one. PET stands for Positron Emission Tomography and it can distinguish between normal cells and rapidly dividing cancer cells. I have a very elementary understanding of how it works, but here's a rundown of what happens during a PET scan appointment.
First of all you have to come in fasting so that your blood sugar is low. You get to sit down in a hospital recliner (like the one pictured above) and after some friendly small talk they "accesses" you. I have a port in my chest, so I get the needle stuck in there. (I'm used to it by now.) If you don't have a port they just stick your arm. After that poke she pricks your finger to make sure you blood sugar is low enough. I never have problems with this. My blood sugar will drop very fast after fasting just one meal.
Then comes in another person (in my case it is another lady) and she has the scary stuff. The radioactive glucose. That just sounds bad. She is wearing heavy duty gloves and has a syringe with warning labels all over it and is encased in a silver metal tube. Then she quickly injects it into my bloodstream. While you try not to think too hard about what you just got injected with or what it is doing inside of your body you get to lay in your comfy recliner for the better part of an hour. They give you a pillow and blanket, shut off the lights and tell you to move as little as possible. Right. I struggled with this the first time, but by now I'm a pro. Off to dreamland I go.
The lights come on, they tell you to go empty your bladder, and then you get to lay down on the little moving table with your arms over your head for about 25 minutes and again...no moving! The glucose has has a chance to be drawn to the rapidly growing cells in the body (cancer) and the radioactivity lights it up for the scan to see. After all the funny sounds and doing your best not to scratch an itch on your nose you are done and free to eat and go about your life...except for one thing. You are off the charts radioactive! Yikes!
So I spent the day shopping at a nearby Sprouts, stocking up on some organic produce and other hard to find items, then I spent some time at the LDS bookstore by the temple in Mesa. Luckily both places were fairly empty and I wasn't near very many people...good thing I didn't glow green or anything...that would've given me away. ;)
So fast forward to getting the results. Tell us what they are already Val!!!
That's what we want right? That's why I went through all that trouble for that scan...to get results. Good or bad, I just wanted to know. Well the call comes in that the test results are...(drum roll please)..."inconclusive". Yep. Wonderful. This is about how I felt.
So now I have to figure out what to do with that. More radioactive scans? Second opinion? *sigh* I guess that's how it goes. Never easy.
I have a phone appointment with my Dr tomorrow afternoon. We will talk about the options that we have. I am looking into a lot of things right now and I really like what a certain Dr in New York is doing and his amazing success in curing cancer...if I'm not already in remission...who knows. I really would love for this to be the end of my journey, but if it were up to me I wouldn't have started this journey. Shows how much I know. Look at how much I've learned. I would've missed out on it all.
All I know is that I feel great, my life is very blessed and I cherish every moment I have with my family. I will not let myself worry over things that I have no control over yet because I lack knowledge. My faith carries me through and I rely heavily on prayer as I seek for the knowledge that we need.
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