Yesterday I had my first PET scan. It was scheduled for 1:50 pm. They told me to fast at least 6 hours prior to the appointment. So I woke up early and I ate my breakfast early. Then they told me that I need to drink a ton of water which I did. It was so hard to fast and I kept thinking of all the food I can eat. I only had to fast for 6 hours and I was already suffering. I started to understand just a tiny bit of what my parents had to go through when they were legitimately hungry when they were younger.
The way it works is that when I fast, I'm basically starving my body of readily available sugar (fuel for the cells) and before it taps into its reserve energy (fat in my thighs). Then when I show up, they inject me with sugar water loaded with radioactive element. This way, any cells that are hyperactive and acting up, it would be hoarding all of the sugar water with radioactive element and the machine will pick up these radioactive elements. Hyperactive cells when I'm resting would be my brain, my kidneys (working to process those sugar water, you know?) and...very very hungry cancer cells. So the areas that hoard lots of these radioactive sugar water will light up like the sun in the scanner. This is how they measure and see where the cancer are in the body.
I'm having this done to see if the drugs I'm currently taking are working. So I did it and today I had an appointment with my oncologist to go over the scans.
Here are the good news:
1. The tumors in my breasts and liver are gone!
2. A bunch (maybe half) of the tumors in my bones are gone!
There are still some tumors in my vertebrae, my right arm, and a small amount in my hip. It's amazing to see the changes in my body with the scans from earlier this year. Earlier this year, the tumors in my hips were so huge that you could barely see the actual bones. However, it looks like it's healed by about 50% now. Yay!
My oncologist told me that I'm right on track with the current drugs. We will continue to monitor via scans. Hopefully the drugs are working and that it will help erase the bulk of the tumors. There is a chance that the tumors will develop a resistance to the drug, then we would have to try a different drug or another method of treatment.
I had a thought that the tumors are kinda like colonies that spread out and settled down somewhere and multiplied. And depending on where they are, they might have more DNA alterations and evolve into another group of tumors slightly different from its mama tumor. Kinda like how migration and evolution of the same squirrels that have spread and evolved based on new environments.
Today, I also wonder what my tumors are like. Are they soft, hard, what are the textures? What color are they? I'm carrying them in me but I don't know they're there. They're like that antisocial roommate who never comes out of their room but you are aware of their presence because they left a spoon in the sink or you can hear their quiet music through the door. They're probably engorged in blood. What I learned from my class is that cancer cells have this nifty ability to cause the area they reside to make a shit ton of new blood vessels so they can get all of the blood's nutrients and oxygen to feed their frenzy growth. So yeah, it'd be cool if I could see them and touch them.
Strangely I don't harbor any hatred toward them. I'm curious about them. They were a part of me and still are a part of me. They are me. They are silly in that they get so hungry and grow so fast that they're consuming me in the process.
You know how in people's obituary they usually say things like "So and so finally succumbed to cancer and die"? Well, I want my obituary to read "LeTran is finally consumed by her cancer baby..." Consume is a truer word.
Here's a cute photo.
The way it works is that when I fast, I'm basically starving my body of readily available sugar (fuel for the cells) and before it taps into its reserve energy (fat in my thighs). Then when I show up, they inject me with sugar water loaded with radioactive element. This way, any cells that are hyperactive and acting up, it would be hoarding all of the sugar water with radioactive element and the machine will pick up these radioactive elements. Hyperactive cells when I'm resting would be my brain, my kidneys (working to process those sugar water, you know?) and...very very hungry cancer cells. So the areas that hoard lots of these radioactive sugar water will light up like the sun in the scanner. This is how they measure and see where the cancer are in the body.
I'm having this done to see if the drugs I'm currently taking are working. So I did it and today I had an appointment with my oncologist to go over the scans.
Here are the good news:
1. The tumors in my breasts and liver are gone!
2. A bunch (maybe half) of the tumors in my bones are gone!
There are still some tumors in my vertebrae, my right arm, and a small amount in my hip. It's amazing to see the changes in my body with the scans from earlier this year. Earlier this year, the tumors in my hips were so huge that you could barely see the actual bones. However, it looks like it's healed by about 50% now. Yay!
My oncologist told me that I'm right on track with the current drugs. We will continue to monitor via scans. Hopefully the drugs are working and that it will help erase the bulk of the tumors. There is a chance that the tumors will develop a resistance to the drug, then we would have to try a different drug or another method of treatment.
I had a thought that the tumors are kinda like colonies that spread out and settled down somewhere and multiplied. And depending on where they are, they might have more DNA alterations and evolve into another group of tumors slightly different from its mama tumor. Kinda like how migration and evolution of the same squirrels that have spread and evolved based on new environments.
Today, I also wonder what my tumors are like. Are they soft, hard, what are the textures? What color are they? I'm carrying them in me but I don't know they're there. They're like that antisocial roommate who never comes out of their room but you are aware of their presence because they left a spoon in the sink or you can hear their quiet music through the door. They're probably engorged in blood. What I learned from my class is that cancer cells have this nifty ability to cause the area they reside to make a shit ton of new blood vessels so they can get all of the blood's nutrients and oxygen to feed their frenzy growth. So yeah, it'd be cool if I could see them and touch them.
Strangely I don't harbor any hatred toward them. I'm curious about them. They were a part of me and still are a part of me. They are me. They are silly in that they get so hungry and grow so fast that they're consuming me in the process.
You know how in people's obituary they usually say things like "So and so finally succumbed to cancer and die"? Well, I want my obituary to read "LeTran is finally consumed by her cancer baby..." Consume is a truer word.
Here's a cute photo.
No comments:
Post a Comment