Best Wishes from the PET Scanner

Big milestones in a cancer patient’s journey are the pre and post CT and PET scans. The pretests are used to help assess the cancer stage. The posttests evaluate the effectiveness of cancer therapy. My pretreatment CT scan and PET scans showed that cancer cells were present throughout my lymphatic system including the large mass in my liver. Because cancer cells were present above and below my diaphragm, I was classified as Stage 3 out of a possible 4. There is no stage 5.

My particular chemo treatment protocol calls for a follow-up CT scan after treatment #2 and a follow-up PET scan after treatment #4. After only two treatments, my post CT scan showed that the tumor had gone down significantly.

So, I had my post PET scan on Wednesday. This is how the nurse explained the test to me. PET stands for positron emission tomography. With a PET scan, radiated sugar water (FDG) is injected into the vein. Cancer cells love sugar, so the sugar molecules attach themselves wherever cancer cells are located in the body. Because the sugar water is tagged with radiation, the PET machine can pick up all the “uptake” locations in the body where the cancer cells connect with the sugar.

Here is the PET scan experience…you can’t eat any carbs or sugars starting at noon the day before the exam. Also, no food 6 hours before the test and no strenuous exercise 24 hours prior to the exam. When you come in, you are given a white “shake” that kind of tastes like bananas (barium). They check the blood sugars in your blood and weigh you.

Then they escort you to your private “uptake/relaxation room.” This room has a radiation warning sign on the door. Here they inject the radioactive sugar water into you via an IV catheter. The nurse carries the sugar water injection into the room in a little radiation proof metal box. She also wears a ring monitor on her finger to measure how much radiation she is exposed to throughout the day. Then you are told to relax in the lazy boy chair. No talking on the phone, no reading, no listening to music. Nothing. Just keep warm and relax. I forgot about the “total relaxation” part from the first PET. I brought a whole stack of books that I wanted to read.

After about an hour in the relaxation room (which is the time for the body to metabolize or “uptake” the sugar water), they tell you that “you are ready for your pictures” and you move to the PET scanner room. At this point, you are asked to lie on your back on a little platform that slides you into the PET machine, a doughnut looking thing. You are in the tube for about 25 minutes. Last time they asked me for my radio station preference. This time they just kept the country music radio station on.

Just before I got into the big doughnut machine, I asked the technician to take my picture. The young woman was a little confused and surprised by my request. I admitted to her that wanting a picture was kind of weird, but that I was documenting every step of my cancer journey. She agreed. I posed. She snapped.

So here I stand next to the PET scan machine, like a smiling tourist standing next to a well-known attraction. Unlike a tourist, I didn’t plan to take this trip nor am I very happy to be traveling down this road. People that have taken this journey might recognize this landmark. The good thing is that this trip has turned into a life-altering experience. I just want a few pictures of the roadside attractions to help me remember the highlights.

I expect to get the results of the PET scan today, just before I go into treatment #5.