Radioactive Man

For the PET Scan today, they injected me with a radioactive chemical for the scan. I was radioactive for 4 hours after the procedure. They told me not to sit next to pregnant women or infants to protect them from my radiation!! That is so weird! And maybe being radioactive is bad for me? I guess not. After injecting me with the dye, they had me sit in a chair for an hour and I was not permitted to move so that the radioactive sugar substance could circulate everywhere and not get stuck in my muscles. Then I had to change into a sweet hospital gown that took me a while to figure out because it had three arm holes. My first thought was that it was made for someone that had a lot of radioactive chemical in them and sprouted a third arm. However, I figured out that 2 of the arm holes would be for one arm...I honestly tried it on my head though. Needless to say, the gown was too short and made me look like an idiot (not that having it any longer would help that much). It wasn't a fashion show though, I just had to get on this table and sit still for 30 minutes while it moved me into these two donut shaped machines. They were looking at my positrons from my guts.

The guts-positrons showed a tiny spot on my spine, which may be nothing (PET scans are notorious for seeing things that are not there), or could potentially be another tumor. So they sent me to get a back X-ray (I did ask if I it was ok to get an X-ray while I am radioactive...somehow that was fine). I may need an MRI to figure out what it is...then I may need a spinal tap. A spinal tap is another one of the things that I had on my list of "things I never want to do in my life". It is where they stick a needle into your spine and suck out cerebro-spinal fluid. They will check there to see if I have lymphoma in my central nervous system, because Lymphomas can sometimes "hide out in your brain". If the spot is a tumor, it puts me at Stage IV. The prognosis would then become slightly worse than if it were Stage I, but it is still relatively good. The treatment would probably be longer and harder if it is Stage IV, so, we will hope that the spot is just a milk dud that went down some crazy wrong tube when I swallowed it.

I am still on for chemotherapy #1 tomorrow, Wednesday. They did chemo orientation today, complete with a binder of information and a tour. It was like getting a new job...same kind of dread and same kind of overload of information that you may never need. One of the pages had a list of all of these horrible medical symptoms that I should call them about if I have them, but I "should never have them". Kind of made me queezy looking at the list. Turns out we do the CHOP first, that one is the one that may give me nausea (3 1/2 hours of IV). Rituxin Thursday (6 hours hooked up to an IV). Flight to Texas Friday. Wednesday, April 26, they predict my blood counts to go down and for me to get neutropenic, anemic, and grouchy. Then 3 days later they should be back up. All of my hair will fall out during my first chemotherapy cycle, so I think I will buzz it tomorrow night.