Pre-Chemo Prep

I've finally caught up and this is about real time now...

Yesterday I had some pre-chemo stuff to take care of. I went to get a echocardiogram, and already knew what to expect. It's pretty cool to see your heart beating on screen, to see the flaps flapping, and to hear the sound of it pumping.

As that was done, I had to scurry to a different location to get my first PET/CT scan. I was nervous about the claustrophobia part. My CT nurse (Anabell) was very nice, and explained every step of the procedure to me beforehand. The first step was my IV. Ugh. By now, I'm very used to needle pricks, and I also think my pain tolerance is pretty high. But this sucked. She tried the large vein in my elbow area, but missed it on the first poke. With the needle still in, she poked in/out/around 5 more times trying to get in the vein. It hurt a lot! She finally gave up and pulled the needle out, and I finally turned my head to see -- and what I saw was my arm covered in blood and more blood pooling in my hand. Grus! She cleaned me up, and tried IV #2 in my wrist. Whew, she got it on the first try. In the meantime, a courier came in carrying two big lead boxes and Anabell explained that one of the boxes had my medicine, specially prepared in Gilroy the evening before and overnighted for use that day. From inside that lead box, they brought out a syringe containing my radioactive glucose and the syringe was covered completely in lead! Crazy to think that this radioactive stuff they're protecting everyone else from is going right into my bloodstream!

After they injected the stuff into my IV, the next step was to sit still for an hour in my own little private room. It was pretty awesome. I watched The Price Is Right in a comfy recliner, wrapped up in a blanket, with a space heater blowing. This allowed the glucose to travel around my body and work its magic by sticking to any potential itty-bitty cancer bits.

Then finally came the scans. The CT/PET machines were not as claustrophobic as I was thought they'd be. There were two separate tubes with a gap inbetween, and each was only wide enough to cover half my body, so it helped with the claustrophobia knowing that I could move at least a part of my body freely at any given time. They ran the PET scan from my knees to the top of my head, moving in sections. I fell asleep. I drank water all morning hoping to open up my veins, so halfway through I needed to pee. They let me go inbetween the PET and CT scans luckily. But after the CT scan, they had to re-do the PET scan of my bladder because it was so full earlier. Hah. The scans took about 75-90 minutes. And then I went home! Easy as pie!