Some Girls Prefer Carnations: Radioactive knockers

Monday, October 25, 2010

Radioactive knockers

A PET scan is no big deal, and although I haven't seen the pictures yet I'm confident that the result is pretty cool. Here's what went down: I had to fast for 4 hours before the procedure so that my blood sugar was nice and low. Then I was injected with radioactive fluorine that is attached to glucose (sugar), at which point it was clear that the purpose of the fast was to decrease the background glucose in my system. I had to rest for 1 hour while the hot sugar (chemically speaking) meandered around my body. Cancer cells apparently metabolize sugar 19 times faster than regular cells, so the cancer cells should concentrate the radioactivity. After said hour I laid on a mini conveyor belt and scooted into a tube. This tube was stubbier and had a more generous opening than the MRI tube, and apparently its job is to scan for the radioactivity in my body. After only 15 minutes of scooting, it was all done. I'm pretty excited to see the images, despite the results. And as the title of this post indicates, I fully expect at least one knocker to be glowing.

Aunt Jacque was here today, and my sister Hilary and her 6-mo-old baby boy are here tonight. It's been a fun cousin party. Hopefully we can keep up the atmosphere tomorrow...it really helps! I'm pretty dang nervous, but my brother Ryan doesn't know what on earth for because tomorrow doesn't change anything. I suppose he's right, but it's easier for me if I make tomorrow the target of my dread instead of the nebulous hours of cancer fighting.

2 comments:

TrezOctober 25, 2010 at 11:43 PM
You keep yourself positive Heather girl! Start telling you white bloodcells to kick in and pick it up. Pray and believe and ask that God will show those little guys the way and that he is steering the wheel of your doctors ship. There are lot people you don't know who are praying and having faith right along with you.
God bless! Lean on your family and friends they love you.
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1 Funky WomanNovember 1, 2010 at 2:42 PM
Hi Heather, I'm Dr. Partridge's wife Megan. Your story is very touching so I hope you don't mind me following you! I loved your "30 years without bacon and all I got was cancer" title. You seem like a doll and I would like to keep you and your family in my prayers!

Feel free to stop by my blog
1funkywoman.blogspot.com
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Books I've read recently

TRUTH AND BEAUTY by Ann Patchett "'Grief isn't something to "be gotten through." It has no life of its own like that, it's just plain and simply there.'" and "History is strangely incomprehensible when you're standing in the middle of it."
THE PATRON SAINT OF LIARS by Ann Patchett "I wanted to be able to stop hoping that she would turn into something else."
MY OWN COUNTRY by Abraham Verghese "I remember the acts of human kindness that illumine our world."
IN THE COMPANY OF CHEERFUL LADIES: No. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY NOVEL #6 by Alexander McCall Smith
CEREMONY by Leslie Marmon Silko
THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG by Muriel Barbery "There's so much humanity in a love of trees, so much nostalgia for our first sense of wonder, so much power in just feeling our own insignificance when we are surrounded by nature..."
A WALK IN THE WOODS by Bill Bryson
THE LACUNA by Barbara Kingsolver "'Soli, let me tell you. The most important thing about a person is always the thing you don't know.'"
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FACE by Lucy Grealy "Sooner or later we all have to learn the words with which to name our own private losses..." and "Part of the job of being human is to consistently underestimate our effect on other people..." and "Sometimes the briefest moments capture us, force us to take them in, and demand that we live the rest of our lives in reference to them."
WATER FOR ELEPHANTS by Sarah Gruen "Age is a terrible thief. Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back. It makes you ache and muddies your head and silently spreads cancer throughout your spouse."
THE HELP by Kathryn Stockett "'I have decided not to die.'" and "Oh, I just break down then. It's like two years a doing and trying and hoping all come out at once."
THE TENNIS PARTNER by Abraham Verghese "Would that I had the chance in my sons' lifetime and my own to one day explain to them all the forces that moved me."
THE BLUEST EYE by Toni Morrison "And then the tears rushed down his cheeks, to make a bouquet under his chin."
REMARKABLE CREATURES by Tracy Chevalier "My life led up to that moment, then led away again, like the tide making its highest mark on the beach and then retreating."
RAMONA QUIMBY, AGE 8 by Beverly Cleary "Mrs. Quimby smiled and said, 'I can tell you're beginning to get well when you act like a wounded tiger.'"
THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway "You see, Mr. Barnes, it is because I have lived so very much that now I can enjoy everything so well."
THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN by Kate Morton "The happiest folk are those that are busy, for their minds are starved of time to seek out woe." And, speaking of hospitals: "An irony that a place relying so heavily on routine should operate so resolutely outside time's usual rhythms."
THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins "Of course, the odds have not been very dependable of late."
THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS by Rebecca Skloot "That cancer was a terrible thing."
THE THIEF OF ALWAYS by Clive Barker "Was there some way...to take back the stolen years, and live them here, with the people who loved him, and whom he loved dearly in return?"
CUTTING FOR STONE by Abraham Verghese "The world turns on our every action, and our every omission, whether we know it or not." Best book I've read in a year

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Monday, October 25, 2010

Radioactive knockers

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