Saturday, January 31, 2009

Holiday Time is Scan Time

On January 5th at 11:15 AM I had my second follow up scan.  Me, Todd, and Mom made the trip into Boston to re-visit our favorite cancer center, Dana-Farber.  It was a grey day and I felt extremely ill from a late night of partying until 5 AM the night before.  

We arrived and momentarily got lost on the PET scan floor.  We needed to be in CT.  Finally in the right place, I sit down with my two bottles of radioactive Crystal Light and Todd and I told Mom some funny stories about our trip to Canada.  Drinking the radioactive juice wasn't as difficult as times past, considering how dehydrated I was.  The major pitfall, aside from the metallic taste, is that they keep it too cold.

I went in for my scan and I think it look less than 5 minutes.  I'm so smart now.  I never wear a bra and therefore, never have to undress.  Just lay down, point to the right vein, wince, and close your eyes while your inside the spinning machine.  The technician and I had some laughs and talked a little bit about New Mexico.

Leaving the scan room, of course, Todd and Mom are nowhere to be found.  Those sneaks.  They are always moseying off to have lunch or get coffee without me!  Because the sign in the waiting room specifically notes: "Please NO food or drink.  Patients are fasting for exams." Fortunately for them, I found them rather quickly in the cafeteria.  We decided to stay there for lunch since we had an appointment with Dr. Fisher at 2:30 PM and the two escapees had snagged a sweet booth.  We had pizza for lunch. 

Dr. Fisher's waiting room is pretty much the worst part of the entire experience.  You never know when they will call you.  And then they call you and they just want to put your name on the list for blood work.  Then you sit down and wait some more.  Then they call you again.  This time it's just to take your vital signs.  Then they finally call you for blood work and you're exhausted and pissed off that you forgot to tell the CT technician to leave the IV in so that they wouldn't have to stick you again.  I only had one vein that day, considering the drinking I had done the night before, so I told her to stick it.  And it was good.  Phew.

Finally!  ...we're brought to a room to wait for the Doc himself.  He doesn't take too long and Todd and I hype him on Mont Tremblant, Quebec.  It's fun.  Then he tells me the scan is clear and that my neck looks like the neck of newborn baby.  And we leave.  And that's that.

I have another scan scheduled for June.  After that I'll be able to go once a year instead of every six months.  That will be nice in a way... though... scarier too.  A year is a whole lot longer to wait while something deadly could be growing inside you.

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