I Thought I Was Done Taking Tests When I Graduated College!

Well, these were going to be weekly posts, but there is so much going on, I decided to update whenever something new was happening. I hope I don't bore you all too much with my ramblings, but I do have a lot of time on my hands right now.

Yesterday, I met my oncologist. Dr. McCullough looks to be in her mid to late thirties. I'm not always the best judge of people's age but she gives off a young vibe. Dr. Stahl thought we would be a good fit and I took it as a good sign when she came into the exam room in white capris and a pink blouse. We were twins! We talked about my general health, my biopsy, the CT scan, and the bone density exam. I also told her about by little escapade getting the CT and bone density. She did a quick physical.

She then started talking to me about the chemo. I was warned that, yes, my hair would fall out. I have had long hair since I was in second grade. The exact lenght has varied over the years but I've always been able to pull it back into a ponytail. This may be the hardest thing for me to deal with. I hope to have a friend cut it about chin lenght soon. Once the chemo starts, I'll go shorter until it's gone.

Another thing I have to look forward to, is that I have to have a port put in to administer the chemo. Whoa! Why can't I just get them through a regular IV? Number 1, right now I only have one arm to use for all the blood draws and drugs I'm going to have in the weeks ahead. That's going to be hard on the veins in my arm. Number 2 is that chemo is basically putting poison in your body to kill those bad cells. They can be very harsh and that's going to be hard on those veins too. Why subject them to more trauma then necessary?

But before the fun can begin, there's a few things to take care of. Dr. McCullough wanted to take a little closer look at some of those cysts that showed up on the CT scan. Before I left her office at the Oncology Center, they took more blood and lined up all kinds of tests for me to take. I don't think Dracula needed this much blood. I was going to have an MRI on Thursday, a PET scan on Friday, and a MUGA scan on Monday. Don't forget that I also still had to get my stitches out on Friday too. Oh, and I also needed to call my dentist and get my regular checkup moved up. Dental work is not a good idea during chemo or with a port. I was also going to have to be more careful about the food I ate. Make sure things are completely cooked and fresh veggies are cleaned. No trips to the salad bar. Too many germy hands there.

So that was yesterday. Today I went for the MRI. Because of my reaction to the CT contrast, the scheduler at the Oncology Center had written the order for without contrast. Well, that was going to be a problem. The contrast was needed to focus in on the liver. I didn't want to take the contrast. I did not want to relive Monday again. The tech explained to me that it was a completely different kind of dye. The CT is iodine based and the MRI is iron based. My reaction was probably due to the iodine. After tracking down Dr. McCullough for a consult, I consented to the dye. Guess what? I had another IV in my right arm. I think I'm becoming a human pincushion.

This was an open MRI. The tube was about as long as a love seat. It was open on both ends. I laid down on the table and they covered me with a sheet. Molly, the younger of the 2 technicians then laid two plates over my torso. I felt like I had on Star Wars Stormtrooper armor. She then put some kind of tube over them. I told her I still had my stitches and was still a little tender. She rearranged the plates so they didn't bother me as much. She then wrapped what was like a giant seat belt around it all. I had to put on a thin fabric shower cap. Holly gave me some headphones so I could listen to music during the scans.

Holding my arms close to my side, the bed moved into the tube. I had my eyes closed but I opened them when it stopped moving. There was more room in there than I expected. If I raised my eyes and looked up, I could see the ceiling out the end of the tube. The bone scan was more claustorphobic to me. It was supposed to take about 20 minutes. It wasn't a continuous scan, there were a lot of small scans. Every time a scan would start, it would ping or bang real loud. This wasn't so bad. But then I had to start holding my breath during the scans. The scans weren't that long, about 20 seconds each. But those 20 seconds can seem like an eternity to an asthmatic. Sometimes I got a chance to recover between scans and sometimes it seemed like I barely caught my breath before I had to hold it again. The elastic on the shower cap was starting to slide down my forehead. I couldn't move my arms to push it out of the way. Between the scans, I would try to wiggle my head to push it back up.

The scan was over much sooner than I expected. I've been home for 3 hours and there's been no reaction to the dye, so I guess I've aced the first test. We'll see how the rest of them go.

Till next time
Love,
Sherry