Up and down and up again… every day lasts forever lately, but I’ve been too busy, time to catch up here…
November 17
PET scan day! This morning, I was injected with some juicy radioactive isotope attached to sugar, yum! Cancer cells then soak it up and a scan then shows where the cancer is concentrated. First you get the injection (which comes in a small heavy metal box), then you have to sit for an hour while it disperses, without using your muscles – muscle activity attracts the sugar and will muddy the results. I was sitting there, sort of sleeping, even though I was in one of those large rooms with multiple areas separated by curtains, like in the ER. I heard the guy in the area next to me talking to the nurse. He was concerned about having exercised the night before. The nurse said something like “Oh it’s OK, the only time I saw a problem was with a guy who went on a 20-mile bike ride, that messed his scan all up”. This caused the guy to get excited, saying that he had actually ridden 30 miles the night before. Apparently this was too much for the nurse to deal with, as she just said “I’m sure you’ll be fine”. My conclusion from this weird conversation is that we’re all human, including the dozens and dozens of people that are helping others through sickness.
The biker apparently had a bone marrow transplant recently that didn’t even sideline him, and I really wanted to connect with someone else trying to bike his way through cancer. But with privacy laws, I wasn’t allowed to send him a message through the staff. The nice technician did say that he would let me say hello to him as I passed, but at that time he was sleeping, so I guess we’ll have to bike together, but separately, to our cures.
I asked about the half-life of the isotope: 111 minutes. The tech said it would be out in 12 hours, although that doesn’t quite add up in my mind. I was disappointed – afterward, my pee was greenish, but even with all the lights out, the toilet didn’t glow. :>
The PET scan itself takes place in one of those infamous tubes – I think MRI tubes are worse, the PET tube was only 4 feet long or so, open on both sides – but just in case, I kept my eyes screwed shut while I was inside, and imagined a wide, empty beach. The scanning lasted 24 minutes, and I think my strategy was a good one – recommended.
November 18-19
I asked for a copy of my PET scan results right when I got it. I am finding out that this is an excellent practice in general. There are all kinds of privacy rules and forms that make it difficult to get even your own records from a hospital or doctor or clinic in a timely fashion, so having a copy means you can make another copy for anyone you need whenever you need. The (up? down?) side is that you get to see all the dirty details yourself. But since there was nothing to be done during the weekend, I was determined to ignore the details of the PET scan results until Monday.
But being a curious creature, when I reached in for the CD to make a copy, I could not resist grabbing the paperwork and taking a peek. Pandora’s box was then open.
There were three distinct stages that followed. I don’t want my faithful readers to go through what poor Andrea and I went through, so let me preface this by saying it ends on an up note. The first stage, however, to quote Jon Stewart (or Buffy, perhaps she was first, but I digress) – “not so much”. What I read in the report was that I had liver “ascites”. Wikipedia says these are liquid pockets that can be associated with peritoneal carcinoma. My mind therefore said “it has gone to my liver”. From my reading, I know that Stage IV colon cancer often spreads to the liver or lungs, as these organs process enormous amounts of blood. So it all fit together. I was progressing towards my demise, and chemotherapy hadn’t even started yet. This led to some amount of shedding of tears, I humbly admit.
The next stage was not too far off, thanks to my brilliant cohort Andrea. She noted that the report said “around” the liver. NOT “the liver”. The liver was actually listed as normal. So it was probably peritoneal. Perhaps the MOAS was just the ticket, then – cut it out of the peritoneum and slosh around some hot chemo. This didn’t extensively alleviate our concerns, but gave us some hope.
Finally, the last stage. I reread the report for the 30th time, only this time noted that it claimed that there was no IV contrast. Which is silly, of course there was, the IV-injected radioactive isotope was the whole point of the PET scan. Which led me to read the date on the report. Which led me to kick myself – it was two weeks old. It was a summary of the CT scan I received before my second surgery. Why would they stick that in with my PET scan CD?? NOTE TO SELF: TAKE OWN ADVICE. Don’t jump to conclusions. Repeat 100 times. The bottom line: the paper report was completely irrelevant, and a peek at the images on the CD looked clear to my untrained eye. No more guessing though – we were officially waiting for Monday before making conclusions.
We were so elated that I think I thought I was cured for a while there. But that comes later… on to chemotherapy!
In other news, Andrea and I had a great date night this week. Folks from Reiley’s soccer team bought us a “date night” – a gift certificate to our favorite board game store, and another for Mellow Mushroom. This is our favorite thing to do – take a game there and play while eating the best pizza on the planet – an extra-large soy-cheese mega-veggie! The game we picked up, Clans, turned out to be simple and fast, yet full of strategy. Good stuff!