Hiya guys.
Yes I know my post is late and that I said I would do it on Wednesday, but you should know by now that I'm a dedicated procrastinator, and in my defense I was waiting for results.
So here we go.
As you all should know, on Monday, me and dad flew down to the windy city for a PET scan to determine what all this chemo has achieved. Well the flight was rather pleasant, with the airport staff being a great help, offering assistance and sorting things so that I simply rolled out onto the tarmac before using my crutches to board. Even the weather was cooperating, with the best landing in wellington, and pretty much anywhere, I've ever experienced. Landing at around 4:30 we jumped in a cab and shot across town to Bowen Hospital and pacific radiology.
After some brief confusion born from entering the wrong building of the hospital, we found our destination and headed for reception. Thankfully they were expecting us, and the receptionist kindly led me to a separate waiting room and handed me a plastic flask of what can be only described as 'Grey goop', with a friendly "drink up". As oral contrasts go, it wasn't that bad. Had a faint taste of cherries surprisingly. Half way through the flask we get met by the man who would be taking care of me that evening, Ken. Man was he a laugh. He explained everything that was to happen, and asked all the regular questions. He even found out about my non-existent drinking and smoking history.
When the time came to start, unfortunately it required a lure, which Ken promptly and skillfully embedded in my arm. As lures go, it was in fact rather painless, still, I hate those things. At least they didn't waste time, they gave me the radioactive sugar that the PET scan requires and left me in a dark room to ferment for an hour. Now i can't really complain about this part, because I was tired, and they had even given me a blanket, so it was pretty much nighty night time. Unfortunately, sleep eluded me for the hour, so instead of a quick sleep it was a slow wait, and I was rather relieved when ken came back to tell me that the hour was past and that the sugar had been absorbed enough for them to begin the scan. In principal, my role in the scan is non-existent other then as the subject. In reality however, it requires an act of will to stay still for the 45-60 minutes required for a full body scan. One interesting thing about CT scans however is that a lot of the time, they inject a contrast into you during the scan, now this on its own is not the significant, it's the effects of that contrast that are. In their words "you'll feel rather flushed, and you may have the sensation that you are wetting yourself". And you do, it is the weirdest feeling ever, apparently one of the staff recently had a CT scan for the first time and got such a fright. But everything went well, we got the scan done and I didn't even wriggle that much at all.
Throughout all this dad waited diligently in the waiting room, half way through being join by the lovely Rochelle who now lives in wellington, and who kindly drove us to get something to eat and finally to Wakefield hospital after my scan was completed. Wakefield apartments, as we discovered, was no 5 star hotel, actually, it barely rates as 2 star motel in my opinion. But it was clean, warm and a place to crash for the night. In the morning we woke up slowly, we had nothing to do till 9 when the cafeteria opened for breakfast, then we just had to wait for our ride to the airport for the return trip which arrived at 10. And so we flew home, uneventfully and as peacefully as we arrived.
Now, Results. I know that this is what you lot are all waiting for. We don't have everything yet, for instance my scans haven't been looked at my Dr Jameson yet, nor has the radiologist got the first scan that was taken in America to compare with this new one. But they have left their initial report of what they can see with just this scan. According to them, the scan they took of me shows a healthy person,
cancer free. And that's the big news. Now I should stress that this hasn't been confirmed my Micheal so its only 99% accurate, but if you ask me, i doubt that he'll find anything wrong with my scan. When we found out the news, mum promptly broke down. Mum got rather annoyed with me, and then a bit later with dad. Because when I heard the news, I didn't jump for joy (rather hard for a man in my position even had i wanted to) or cry out, all mum got was a simple "Sweet" and a big grin. Dad then followed suit an hour later with "oh lovely", so mum thinks we're both emotionless gits. But anyway, we get the final say on Monday, which is what I had planned to wait for, but since people have been getting rather impatient to hear news I've been forced to concede the information early.
And that brings us up to day. I still don't know the fate of my leg, I imagine that I'll get that from Micheal when we visit him on Monday.
So till then, be good and stay healthy.
Logan
