Crawling out of bed in the dark at 0430 is not my idea of a pleasant way to start the day. Getting ready to go for a PET scan, when a few symptoms are making me skittish, makes me want to hide under the covers and slide back onto the landscape of my colorful dreams where I am strong-as-bull in body and in mind.
Still, Marvin urges me to keep moving so we can leave on time. I sullenly capitulate, furtively shooting him the evil eye.
At six o’clock in the morning I am alone when I arrive at the infusion center where the experts can access my PowerPort in preparation for the PET scan. Finally, staff begin to arrive, and with my PowerPort ready for the injectable radioisotopes, I head over to the nuclear imaging center, one building away.
The process went smoothly, from my drinking the glucose solution and water, to their injecting the radioisotopes via my PowerPort to my hour-long rest and then the thirty-minute scan. The technician on duty is the same as for my previous scans, professional and friendly in a low-key, soothing kind of way. He always lets me know how far along in the scan we are, which helps me a lot since my sense of time is completely lost in that setting. Thirty minutes might as well be two hundred.
It is a mystery to me how a procedure that demands from me only resting for an hour followed by lying still for another half hour can be exhausting. I leave the imaging center feeling a bit wobbly, looking forward to meeting a friend over breakfast and suddenly realizing that the worst part of the day was that I still had not had any coffee.
5 6 7 8
© 2004-2011 Donna Peach. All rights reserved.
Donna Peach 
Well, it doesn’t help that they shoot up your blood sugar like that – it makes you wobbly. That’s why caffeine and something to eat afterward helps.
And maybe it’s also partly boredom. That hour in the chair is deadly – nothing to do except fret about what the results are going to be, which is particularly stressful when you have one of those feelings that something isn’t quite right. I can certainly empathize with that!!
I hope your feeling is wrong in this particular case, dear sister-in-arms, and that the results come back free and clear of progression. When will you hear from your onc?
Big hugs and lots of hope for a positive outcome…