My PET/CT

I chose to have a PET/CT done rather than a CT and bone scan.  After speaking with a co-worker that did both, I decided it would be better to do the one scan that would be more diagnostic.  He also told me that many times after the bone scan and CT they would recommend the PET/CT anyhow to follow up.  Rather than risk doubling the radiation exposure I would just do the sure thing and expose myself just once.

I scheduled the PET/CT just two days before my surgery.  I was told that it would be much more diagnostic before.  With all of the healing my body would do after the surgery, we didn't want anything to throw off the results.

A PET scan works by using a radio-pharmaceutical that is attached to glucose.  They do this because cancer needs glucose to survive.  The radio-pharmaceutical will then allow the cameras to pick up the areas that also picked up the glucose (the cancerous areas).  I would go without any sugar for breakfast and eat only foods that were high in protein. This is done because we don't want the cancer to be feeding on any sugar prior to the exam and again throw off the results.  I chose to eat eggs.

The process is pretty simple for the PET/CT.  The first step is to start an IV.  Once the IV is established, the glucose and radio-pharmaceutical are injected.  After that, you have to wait around very quietly.  No movement or talking for about 40 minutes.  At that point you urinate if needed, and then they do a very basic low dose CT.  After this, it will take about 20 minutes to do the PET portion.  It is very important to keep still.  In the end, they merge the two sets of images together to get a more conclusive set of images.

The day before the scan took place I was speaking with one of the PET techs.  She had hired me back in the day, and she was pretty sad about the whole cancer thing.  She would be doing the scan with another co-worker of mine, and she said when she saw that I had good results she would give me a big smile or thumbs up.  I was waiting for this, but it never came.  Instead she was a bit solemn, and she said to make sure to get the results from my oncologist or surgeon rather than signing a form to get the images and results on a disc.  This made things seem pretty bad.

I did wait, but only until the next day.  I signed the proper forms, and I saw that things weren't quite as bad as I could have imagined.  The whole left side was lit up to be sure, but we already knew that.  There did not seem to be any involvement in the bones, liver, or lungs.  The only thing that we could see that we were unsure about was one lonely internal mammary lymph node on the right side.  No problem!