Positively radiant

Happy Hour at SCCA!

FREE BARIUM COCKTAILS AND NO COVER FOR THE LADEEEEEEES!!!

Yesterday was my EKG, Chemo School, and the PET scan.  I wish it had all been as easy as the EKG.  The EKG involved several minutes of changing, applying little stickers to my chest arms ankles and side, attaching jumper cables to these stickers, all for a one page printout.  I thought the machine broke, but sure enough, ten seconds of monitoring was all that was needed.  Enjoy the bill for that, insurance company!

Chemo School was head spinningly informative.  It started with learning about the port I’m getting put in.  It will be embedded in one of the muscles on my chest, then a tube will run up behind my collarbone and inserted into my jugular vein then will turn down and end up near my heart.  This is where a lot of arteries end up, so it will be like dumping the medicine into the bottom of Niagara Falls rather than into one of the little tributaries that trickle along until they end up at Niagara Falls.

We went over all the different drugs and their side effects in my combination of chemo, Folfoxiri.  Side effects are pretty much diarrhea, diarrhea, and diarrhea.  I’ll also be getting a lot of drugs to counteract the side effects, including steroids to combat fatigue.  How are YOU chumps celebrating the return of Jersey Shore??  I was also given prescriptions for 13 different drugs, and I got to see the machine I’ll take home for 2 days of infusions.

Then it was off to the PET scan.  Oh, for those who read my last post, the doctor didn’t even order the catheter, but I think we’re all better for the debate thanks to Aislinn’s  informative comment.  The scan experience started with my old friend, barium.  I suppose the stuff isn’t THAT bad, but it’s nothing anyone in their right mind would choose to drink.  I had an hour to suck a bottle and a half of that down, then a nurse came in and injected me with the sugar water, which is actually more radioactive than I may have let on.  For the next hour, I wasn’t allowed to move, couldn’t walk around, couldn’t even read.  So I took a lovely nap.

THEN came the PET scan.  45 minutes of lying completely still in a small tube, with my arms above my head.  I’m not normally claustrophobic so I turned down the tranquilizer, but next time I’m going for it.  With about ten minutes to go, this one teeny little spot on my head seemingly found the one part that wasn’t covered by something soft, and man did it start hurting.  The PET scan takes several images and layers them on top of each other, so I kept telling myself I couldn’t move, so I wouldn’t “spread the cancer around”, or really just make anything look bigger than it was.  Right when I was at the point where I was probably going to yell UNCLE and ask to be let out just to fix that hard part, I heard the voice of an angel telling me I was done.  Afterwards I was monitored for any allergic reactions and given my first meal of the day: a tiny container of grape juice and a stick of string cheese.  I decided I don’t want to be friends with anyone who doesn’t eat string cheese the stringy way.

I got a little certificate stating I was radioactive for 12 hours following the scan in case I was going to fly anywhere.  Good grief, all I could do after a day like that was go home and sleep more.