peeking inside

 all ready for my injection.  today took three sticks with a butterfly needle.  the blood wasn't flowing so great.

 this was my first PET scan at PCAM; i've never seen a sign like this one before.  "hot lab". for some reason it made me laugh.

the radioactive material is delivered already dosed especially for me, and it comes in a handy lead container to keep the radiation away from the lab technicians.  this is always reassuring to see just before they push the plunger to release it into my veins.

today was PET scan day, and it started around 6am as i very conveniently turned my alarm off instead of hitting snooze.  i jumped up, luckily mere moments later, and realized what i had done.  i jumped in and out of the shower, ran down the stairs and out the door, and got into my car before i noted i was still half asleep.  mom had offered to drive this morning so i took her up on it, and met her at home a couple of minutes late.  we were early enough in rush hour we made great time and were actually about twenty minutes early for my appointment.

the receptionist at the radiology department recognizes me but cannot quite remember my name.  it is always some play on my last name - doyle, dolls, dole - she is always so close, yet so far away.  today she remarked it had been a long time since my last visit; when i am standing there in person it feels like it was just yesterday.  i went through registration and deferred payment of my ridiculous copay until the hospital decides to send a bill.  this makes me feel like i am getting away with something.  in reality, i am not, in fact, the bean counters recently found i owed my copay from a scan last march, ah, the good old days before $175 trips through the scanner.  but i digress.

PET scans are different than CT scans.  a CT scan is basically a very detailed x-ray image that allows doctors to take a 3D look inside our bodies.  they show things - such as "ground glass opacities"  but they do not offer any more information that that.  it said right on the orders for my PET scan we were following up on the last CT scan and trying to determine whether what we saw was indeed inflammatory in nature, which is what we are hoping for.  the PET scan offers more detail, in some ways, for the doctors.  the patient (in this case study, moi) is injected with glucose tagged with a radioactive isotope.  after the injection the patient sits for about 45 minutes while the body does its thing - metabolizes the glucose - putting the sugar to work in the cells.  there are cells in the body that are naturally going to use the glucose more readily, say, your cardiac cells.  but there are those pesky cancer cells, and those gobble up glucose like the last of the stuffing leftovers from thanksgiving.  after 45 minutes the patient, who really only wants to remain napping in the recliner, is whisked away to the PET scanner, which is basically an extra long CT scanner, that is to say, a five-foot or so tunnel that takes both CT images and PET images.  part of the machine "looks" for the radioactive material in your body and if, say, there's a cluster of cells going crazy in your lung, you just might have lung cancer.  

so, in summary, i went in there, not having eaten for six-plus hours, got stuck three times, had my blood sugar level measured, had the isotope and some saline injected, snoozed for 45 minutes, snoozed again on the scanner table for 20 minutes, and took off in search of food and water to drink so i could start flushing this stuff out of my system.  it sounds like a lot of nothing, but the day as a whole is tiring and the anticipation of what is to come isn't all that great.  i know what i think about it all, and i hope today turns out to be a waste of isotope, but i know what i think about that, too.  i'll know for sure on wednesday and until then there's not much to do.  i tried to give it my all today, but that's the funny thing, there's no way to prepare and when you don't make the team it really, really sucks.