No matter how hard I try to make sure to prepare myself and do exactly what I'm suppose to do, I always seem to f*ck up my PET scan. Last summer when I had my first PET scan, I took my pills during the time you aren't suppose to eat anything, which includes breath mints or chewing gum. I remember when I was laying on the scan bed and the technician asked me if I was sure I hadn't eaten anything. I was sure I hadn't so I said no, ma'am. Only later did I realized it might have been my pills. I don't know if it actually did cause a problem, but I also remembered that I drank flavored water, which I found out this time around is also not permitted. You are allowed to drink two glasses of water during the fasting period (4 hours) prior to the scan. So, I had no idea that you weren't allowed to drink flavored water. But it wasn't like it was flavored with anything that contained any sugars, which is what they want to make sure you don't have a lot of in your blood for the scan. 24 hours prior you are suppose to limit your intake of carbs and sugars.
So, I think I screwed up last year, but nothing was found on the scan anyway, so it didn't matter. The mistake, if it was one, didn't show up as anything to worry about. That said, this time I wanted to make sure I did everything right so that I knew I was getting a good reading. A PET scan is a slower scan than a CT scan. You lay on the scan bed for half an hour as it scans sections of your body for about five minutes each section until they have a whole body scan.
Getting a PET scan isn't difficult or painful or stressful. It's relatively easy and comfortable. But it is time consuming and a bit tedious. Like I said, 24 hours prior you are suppose to not eat a lot of sugars or carbs, so I had salad for lunch and eggs for dinner. Then four hours before your scan you are suppose to fast, but drink two glasses of water (no flavoring). I drink carbonated water all the time, so I didn't drink that because I wanted to be super sure I was not doing anything that would interfere with the scan. You are suppose to wear comfortable clothes, without metal buttons or buckles, etc. And no jewelry. So, I took off all my jewelry the night before so I wouldn't have to remove it at the center.
When I got there they took me in pretty quickly. The PET technician was a very nice woman who led me to where they do the PET scan, past my old haunt where they do the radiation treatments. I saw a few familiar faces busy doing their jobs. She took me into the little room where there is just a recliner chair and gave me a warmed blanket to wrap around my shoulders and half of my container of barium drink. She explained that it was no longer coconut flavored but orange cream, and that people liked it enough to claim it tasted like a creamcicle. We laughed at that. I've drank enough of that stuff to know that it wouldn't taste like any creamcicle I'd ever had. Truth was though that it wasn't too bad. She told me to enjoy my nap and turned down the light and said she'd be back soon. About fifteen minutes later she came in to give me my dose of radioactive something or other, which they inject into your veins. She had to go get the drug, which I imagine has to be kept in a radiation containment fridge. It was a small cylinder encased in metal which she used a needle to remove the liquid and inject into my arm (through one of those little tubes they stick in your arm.
She ten gave me a timer which was set to go off in fifteen minutes, at which time I was suppose to drink the rest of the creamcicle. She said she would be back in forty-five minutes. After I drank the liquid yumminess it was hard not to fall asleep cuz there I was in a recliner, with a warm blanket around me in a dim room, but I managed to stay awake. When she came back she showed me where the bathroom was. You are suppose to empty your bladder of the water you drank earlier, I suppose, and maybe some of the barium. I also had to take off my bra because it had metal fasteners.
It was a different woman who administered the scan. She asked me, when she brought me into the room, whether the buttons on my shirt were metal. I was wearing a new shirt I'd just gotten. It was a black henley type shirt with five little buttons at the top front. I had decided to wear it when I looked at it a couple days before to see if the buttons on it were metal. I looked at them and was sure they were plastic. I thought that was great because it was the perfect shirt to wear to the scan. So, I told her that the buttons were plastic. I lay down on the scan bed and adjusted my head into the little neck pillow thing and she pulled a big velcro harness thing around my body at my arms so that my arms and hands were held tight to my body and wouldn't move. In a CT scan they usually give you a rubber ring to hold onto and you raise your arms over your head. The big velcro thing is actually a lot more comfortable because you just forget you have arms.
The technician told me when I was halfway finished, and before I knew it I was done.
So, maybe you are wondering how I f*cked it up again. Well, later in the day I decided to check out those buttons on the henley shirt again just to sort of make sure I was right about them being plastic. I was sure of course. The only problem was, was that I quickly realized how wrong I was. At closer inspection I found they were indeed metal because I clicked it against my teeth and you just know whether something is metal or plastic when you hit it against your teeth. Why hadn't I done that the other day? I'd screwed it up again and I was so upset. I did not want to have to do another one, and waste everyone's time and money again.
Edited later to add: the PET scan was clear. I had a follow up with my oncologist and he said that the cancer might never come back, which sounded good to me.
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