Miniature Christmas Tree

Having a PET scan is very similar to getting a CT scan or a bone scan.  The tech injects a radioactive isotope into your veins.  Said isotope moves through your body, and then a machine takes a bunch of pictures.  The difference with a PET scan is that the pictures provide a look at the cellular level while the other scans look at the larger internal structures.  They inject a substance called FDG, fluorodeoxyglucose, which is a simple sugar chased down with a bit of radioactive material.  The idea is that cells need sugar in order to reproduce.  Cancer cells are greedy, and as such will gobble up sugar when it’s available.  So the isotope and the sugar circulate through the body, then the pictures are taken.  By some magic that I don’t quite understand, the end result is a set of images.  Areas that are dark are presumed cancer free.  The bright areas are those that light up because the sugar and isotope have been gobbled up by cancer cells.  So that’s your crash course on PET scans.  Now, on to my experience and results.

My veins are a train wreck thanks to chemo, so I always warn people that my veins like to behave badly, they roll and they blow.  This time was no different.  The vein she chose rolled and then blew.  She tried again on my forearm and had success.  Once she injected the goods, I sat around and watched “Love it or List it” for an hour while the sugar/isotope circulated through my body.  Once in the scanner, I had to lay still and got sooo bored.   So I sang a song that happens to be DD’s favorite:

My God is so big,

so strong and so mighty,

there’s nothing my God cannot do.

The mountains are His,

the rivers are His,

the stars are His handiwork, too.

 

Then I thought about a text message that my aunt had sent me last night saying that for some unexplicable reason, once you lay down on the scanner, you feel peace.  And you know what, I did.  I just knew that regardless of the results, I would be at peace.

Then I started getting ancy, so I started counting specks on the ceiling, and the holes in the machine, and anything else that I could see without moving my head.  They really need to have better things for patients to look at, like a little slideshow on the ceiling would be great!

Anyway, so fast forward to 5pm when I called the nurse and got the results of the scan.  She led by saying that she unfortunately didn’t have good news.  Then she went on to tell me that there’s disease in both of my axillary areas, in my right humerus bone, in my thoracic spine (mid-back, which I think explains why my fall over a month ago was so painful), and in my right groin.  She said the next step is to get a biopsy of one of the bony areas to see if this is a new cancer or if it’s the previous cancer metastasized.

This is not the result we were hoping for.  Evenso, I’m feeling very calm about the whole situation.  The nurse was even surprised at how well I was taking the news.  Honestly, I’m kind of surprised, myself.  As I’ve been thinking about it for the past 6 hours, I’ve come to the conclusion that a confluence of factors is helping me find calm.

1.  Faith – I just know that God has a plan and that He’s got me.  Never in my life has He left my side.  Yes, there have been challenges, but I was a better and stronger person on the other side.  This is another one of those challenges that I will weather with Him sustaining me.  My aunt sent me a quote from a Dwight Nelson sermon:  “Faith takes us beyond reason, beyond empirical evidence.”  I can’t love this quote enough!
2. Prayers – So, so many of you are storming the heavens for me and my family.  While some might say, “But you have more cancer, He didn’t answer your prayer.”, I would say that He did answer, it was just “No”, or “not yet”.  Just because He didn’t answer in the affirmative doesn’t mean He has let us down.  It would be easy to just throw your hands up and say, “I quit praying, He didn’t do what I wanted.”  But I would counter that this is the time to step up the prayers as well as changing the focus.  Yes, pray for healing, but also pray for understanding, acceptance, and faith.  So don’t give up on the prayers, keep them coming, because they work and I can feel them.
3. Indeterminance – This might seem like a strange word to associate with calm, but in this case it fits.  Here’s why:  while I have more information now, it’s not complete information, meaning that my path is not yet determined.  We don’t know if it’s a new cancer or the old cancer.  We don’t know how much cancer there is in each area.  We have no information on it’s treatability.  As far as I’m concerned, that’s a whole lot of uncertainty, and I see no point in getting stressed out and worried.  Sure, the Grim Reaper is knocking at my door, but at this point, to door is still barricaded.
4. Support – It goes without saying that I have the most amazing friends on the planet.  The amount of support and love pouring onto my FB feed today was unreal.  All of the texts and FB messages covered me in love.  It’s so, so amazing and I’m humbled!
5. Hope – While I don’t have concrete information as to the extent of the disease, my gut tells me that I should still have hope.  In my gut, I feel like this is going to be treatable.  Think about the cancer in the bones.  You may be thinking, “Wait, I thought her bones were clear?”  Yep, I thought that, too.  But remember that the bone scan just shows the major structures while the PET scan is on the cellular level.  My thinking is that the size of the cancer was below the threshold of what could be seen in a bone scan, thus leading me to the conclusion that the cancer in the bones is small.  This is a good thing!  Obvs, it would be even better if it weren’t there, but that ship has already sailed and no use in trying to chase it down.  So, even though my scan lit up like a Christmas tree, it was only a miniature Christmas tree, and so, I am hopeful.

What’s next?  I see my oncologist on Monday afternoon to discuss, and I plan on having a slew of questions to throw at him.  I’m going to want to see the pictures.  I’m going to want to know how big and terrible, or not, this is.  I’m going to talk to him about alternative therapies (diet, supplements, etc) to complement the traditional therapy.  I’ll expect to leave armed with a plan of attack.

I’ll leave you with three youtube recordings of songs whose lyrics are giving me comfort, and with a quote from my Aspie 9 year old.

“Lots of cancer doesn’t mean you are dying.  Lots of cancer is just lots of cancer.”