Oct
14
I just had another bone scan. I like the bone scan, as I have mentioned before, repeatedly, and to anyone who will listen. I just happen to think it’s amazing to see my whole skeleton on the computer screen. Really, who ever gets to see every bone in their body, from head to toe(s)? I think it’s totally fascinating. Not to mention rather seasonal, what with Halloween right around the corner.
For the uninitiated, the bone scan takes place in the terrifyingly named Nuclear Medicine Lab, and involves getting an injection of tracer fluid, which comes in a lead tube with this symbol all over it:
I never tire of saying that they give me this radioactive injection “just in case I don’t already have cancer,” and today I thought it would be funny to say it to the lab technicians handling the injection. They didn’t laugh. They looked at me and blinked and kept doing their thing. Clearly they’re not so much into cancer humour down there in the ol’ Nuke Lab.
Actually, for all the Chernobylesque weirdness of it, the needle is tiny and doesn’t hurt at all. The fluid travels through the blood stream to the kidneys and into the bones, which then magically light up onscreen when they slide you through the giant George Foreman Grill type apparatus. This takes about twenty minutes.
Painless, fascinating, and effective for diagnosing any trouble cancer might be causing in dem bones. What’s not to love about this test?
Also, I make a nice nightlight for a few days.
Not true, I just wrote that to irritate the lab techs. But if I were to have to fly somewhere in the next couple of days, I would set off the security alarms at the airport. For this purpose, you can get a special post-scan medical card that says that you are not a bomb (not in so many words.)
Here are some things I learned today:
- An x-ray looks at the anatomy of bones whereas a bone scan looks at the physiology. In other words, an x-ray knows what my bones look like, and a bone scan knows what they’re doing.
- With an x-ray, the radiation comes from the machine, whereas with a bone scan the radiation comes from you. And you were worried about standing in front of the microwave.
- Because the radioactive tracer fluid goes through the kidneys into the bones and is then expelled through urine, all you’ll see in the imaging is bones, and sometimes kidney and bladder, which show up as black spots. This is very important to remember since when people with caner see any kind of black dots whatsoever on medical imaging they tend to freak right out.
Coming soon: the actual scan images of my skeleton… Hoping to pick them up from the hospital records desk in time for my Halloween post! Spooky!
Jul
15
In a recent e-mail my aunt referenced the old mapmakers who, when faced with uncharted territory, used to write “There be dragons.” That’s how it feels as we wait for results from my bone & CT scans. Scary, unknown, and forbidding. I just find myself hoping there aren’t very many dragons.
Then, just when I was about to post this, I read two comments that I had missed in response to my “The M-Word” post. This is an excerpt from one:
I never in a million years dreamed this would happen to me….never ever expected that the monster would be inside me. Cancer was so not in my plans-I’ve been fighting to have my life back since last October…I may win this battle, but my innocence and my fertility have been sacrificed to the dragon. I am deeply thankful for everyday and every kindness and I know what every wish will be from here on out and now that I’ve met fear for real-I know what not be afraid of…and what to be – so I’m training and arming myself for the next battle, whenever it may come…next time I will be waiting outside the gate, sword drawn. (Although let’s hope it’s more like laser blasters)—posted by Jules
(Thank-you for the comment in its entirety, Jules. My friend Eden asked, “Do you just cry your face off every time you read the comments on your blog??” I do. I cry my face off. Total waterworks. But in a good way.)
OK so, kind of a creepy coincidence that both Jules and I were doing the dragon associative imagery thing – but also very comforting and strengthening to picture myself standing at the gate, sword drawn.
Comforting, and then (because my imagination is about as sophisticated and easily contained as an untrained puppy) it descended into a nerded-out Dungeons-and-Dragons type fantasy, as I pictured all my friends and family and all the “sisters” in a Lord of the Rings-meets-Braveheart type scene: everyone armoured-up and ready for battle outside the gates of Mordor, wielding gigantic swords, faces painted, thumping at their chests à la Mel Gibson meeting the British army… I know I’ve cross-pollenated my genres but good god did I chuckle. Honestly, just the vision of my mom sporting chain-mail while trying to look menacing with a sword that’s way too heavy for her* — this alone is worth the drive to Middle Earth any day.
So thanks Jules for making me cry and laugh all at once – and for giving me some good positive spin on my “there be dragons” fear of the unknown. Let’s hope the dragons aren’t too numerous or too ravenous, and when it’s all over they’re just a heap of scales and claws and bad smells at our feet.
* Yes, mummy, I know: No sword is too heavy for a mother protecting her child. I love you too.
Jul
08
Yesterday I went for the bone scan. I already knew the drill: come in for the injection of radioactive tracer fluid (say it with me, just in case I didn’t already have cancer) wait an hour, and then lie still while a giant waffle-maker transmits images of my skeleton to a computer screen. I confess I like the bone scan. It is cool to see your own skeleton from head to toe. It’s very sci-fi. Plus it doesn’t hurt.
Unfortunately I have to wait until Monday for my CT scans, and even then we’ve asked my oncologist to get all the results before telling us what (if anything) these tests turn up. So, likely end of next week sometime, we will know what we’re facing.
I’m trying to approach the CT scans and bone scan realistically. My strategy is to assume that something will turn up somewhere; that in all likelihood, given that I found the lump in my neck because it was protruding, there will be things (lesions, tumours, groups of evil, hateful, unwelcome cells) in places I can’t feel them. The idea is to be mentally prepared so that if absolutely nothing else should turn up (can you imagine the relief??) I can celebrate, but if they find something I will have been expecting it.
Basically it’s a nice theory, but in practice it’s BS. The truth is I’m scared. When I’m not totally distracted by something else, I’m living in dread. So I’m actually relieved that I have several more days to try to get my head around it, and even then I think it’s a tall order.
On the up-side, the clinical trial nurse called today to tell me that they have a place for me in the study! Now I just have to go through the whole screening process and actually qualify as a subject… Yes, more testing. That’s just my life right now, but if it means I’m going to have a chance at beating this thing, I’m ok with it.
Jul
03
After meeting with my oncologists yesterday we have some answers. Not great ones. Apparently, the cancer was able to grow after so much treatment – and while I’m still receiving Herceptin – because it’s very “aggressive.” Cancers in younger women often are. Thing is, when I was told that the lymph nodes in my neck were positive I assumed they were part of the same lymph node system as the original cancer, but this is not the case. And this is crucial, because this means that my cancer has moved to a new site. It has metastasized.
The M-word. More menacing even than its terrifying step-mother, the C-word.
I have metastatic breast cancer. The cancer has metastasized. Any way I try to say it or write it, it is gigantically overwhelming. C-word + M-word = so, so scary.
It means the cancer is on the move. It travels in disguise and is sneaky and strong and knows lots of martial arts and is hell-bent on killing me, like an evil cellular-level Jason Bourne that has somehow slipped past the defensive lines of chemo and Herceptin.
Basically, at the very least, it means I can never let my guard down ever again for as long as I live. Which is to say they have taken treating my cancer “curatively” off the table and are now talking about “prolonging my life.”
When you are 37 that sounds like a bum deal. Probably it sounds like a bum deal at any age. But my husband and I are still in the early years of life together and our daughter is only 3 years old. She picks me dandelions. She races into my arms. She mispronounces words captivatingly. She has tantrums and is extraordinarily affectionate, like a benevolent dictator. She needs me.
So you know what that means: I need to beat this thing. It means, get out of my way, stupid metastasized cancer.
Next week I’m lined up for a bone scan and CT scans of all my organs to see, well, whatever there is to be seen. Or not seen. Then, we attack.
I sound brave? I’m not brave, I’m scared, but I’m not going to be bullied.
They won’t surgically remove the lymph nodes in my neck because of the risks of this kind of surgery and because they feel they can effectively deal with the affected lymph nodes through radiation. Also because this needs to be treated systemically not just locally. We were originally told that they wouldn’t do chemo because it’s too soon following my last course of treatment, but it turns out that isn’t entirely true. There is a possible chemo option (oh, hateful chemo!) and a very promising clinical trial option, which we’re really, reeeeally hoping I’ll qualify for and be able to start ASAP.
Scared or brave or both, I’m going to do whatever it takes. Yesterday my friend Adam sent me a Bruce Cockburn quote: “We’re going to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight.”
One kick at a time.
