This is very true…
But a clean PET scan is the best birthday present ever!

I have to admit that I’m still processing all this. As many of you know, I was pretty tied up in knots about this latest PET scan (my fourth). Partly due to the timing … my recurrence last March happened six months after finishing chemo, and this was also six months since I finished chemo for the second time in July. And partly because for the past few weeks I’ve been experiencing some pretty bad abdominal pain. I was half-convinced the cancer was back, and started beating myself up for not doing the whole “anti-cancer” antioxidant diet, for not losing weight and getting super-fit, for not … being perfect? I dunno. I just felt I could have done better and was sure I was now going to be “punished” for not having done so (those sicko Catholic upbringings take a lot of getting over). Anyhow, I was a mess. And so, when I hadn’t heard from the hospital about my PET scan appointment last week I started pestering The Team…

I’d last seen my oncologist in November and had previously been told that I was going to be tested every three months for the first year after finishing chemo, so I was surprised when she said I wouldn’t have another scan until the beginning of January. Four months after my last CT scan. She was all – “oh, with the holidays and all” – and said she would see me again in February. And when I asked her whether I’d be having a CT or a PET scan she said … “oh, let’s make a PET this time”. Like, duh? Anyhow, I am very glad it was a PET this time because when the appointment got screwed up I was able to call The Team and ask what was going on. Later I started panicking on the phone (in the supermarket) when Ricardo called and said the appointment had actually been requested for the end of January. Five months??? No way. I began babbling on the phone about the pain, the fear, how I was already a month late for my scan … and Ricardo said he’d get right back to me. Which he did. With a PET scan appointment for the next day. Yesterday.

I can’t begin to express my love and appreciation for The Team – they’ve been there for me since I was first admitted for the emergency op back in May 2008. Who knew back when I was giving English classes to these guys in the nuclear medicine department (including the head of the dept) that ten years later I would end up being one of their patients? But without them, without that personal connection … I shudder to think of how different all this would have been.

And so, I got there for the PET yesterday morning, said hi to everybody, and finally got in for the injection, then the scan. Then Nog and I went off  for a much needed coffee and some toast (I wasn’t allowed to have brekky before the scan) and after that we checked back to see if I’d have to go through the machine a second time. Apparently it’s quite normal to have to do so, to double check any areas that perhaps hadn’t turned out as clear as they’d have liked. I’ve always had to have two scans (the second one is much shorter), but this time I was put through a third time! And in between I was up in the chemo room trying to get my port flushed. All in all, a totally exhausting day.

But the good news is that the scan looks clean. And once again I feel so lucky to have The Team behind me. I didn’t have to wait for the results. When Pilar first told me that everything looked good I asked when she would be able to call me back with the final report. She said probably later in the evening, but that she’d just be calling to say the same thing. And later (after the third scan) Isabel said they were all happy with the results… that the inflammation seen on previous scans had all but disappeared and that there were no tumours anywhere.

THERE. WERE. NO. TUMOURS. ANYWHERE.

And so … as I say, I’m still processing all this. I almost can’t believe it. I am at once so incredibly relieved and happy, but also almost too afraid to believe I’m okay. You can’t imagine how it’s been (well, I know some who know) living like this for the past year and a half. Between the operations and during the chemo there has been so much pain and fear. I’ve been so bloody afraid almost all the time. People often comment on how “brave” I am, but I’m not brave … and as I mentioned earlier, I really feel I have let myself down in how I have coped, and not coped, with all of this.

But at least for the next three months I will be eating those goji berries, drinking that green tea, and doing whatever I can do to help my luck out … so if the worst happens after the next scan then I will know I did everything I could. The next scan will be the two-year mark. I was given a 50/50 chance of surviving for five years when I was first diagnosed. And according to my onc, Dr Ana, those odds have not changed.

But, so far so good…