In the 'PET Suite' - are we barking mad?

Today was a biggie.  We had an 8am appointment for a Whole Body PET-CT Scan in a different section of RPA this morning.  Alex was not allowed anything to eat from midnight last night - except water and of course his large diet of tablets.

So we set off early, parked the vehicle and found our way into, up, along and around a few turns to the Department of Molecular Imaging at RPA.  At their Reception desk, they undertook the by now familiar routines, gave Alex a clipboard with yet more paper, and pointed us to the waiting room.

We weren't there long at all.  Only just enough time to scan the information, fill out the consent forms and then the nurse came along to check Alex's current weight and height.  We then moved to a large 'Preparation Room'.  A room with a name like this had all sorts of connotations, but really it was a spartan room with a very pleasant outlook.

The notes we were given seemed to spend quite a few paragraphs on the fact that the rooms are all equipped with CCTV cameras.  Now we've watched and studied programs like The Bill, Scott and Bailey, Taggart and so on to 'know' that CCTVs are a fact of life.  It's just that we haven't always associated them with reducing staff radiation exposure and therefore allowing the staff to work more efficiently ...

Once Alex was settled, a nurse came in to attach a cannular to the back of Alex's hand.  Then a technologist came in with his trolley.  His job was to inject some FDG through the cannular. 

This is basically a radioactive sugary injection.  The body's cells use sugar as a source of energy.  The cancerous tumours by their very nature are hungry, and the more aggressive the tumour the hungrier they are.  So these hungry tumours will eat more of the liquid mix than the surrounding cells and because the liquid is radioactive, they will "light up" more.  This is my explanation, and I'm sure that our friends who are medically trained will correct me if I have this explanation a tad too relaxed.

For the next hour, Alex had to just relax.  This gave the FDG liquid enough time to circulate throughout his whole body.

Since any activity during this time may show up on the scan as increased muscle metabolism which could sometimes obscure important pieces of information on the final scan, we decided that he should just totally relax rather than read and get excited about the wonderful places to explore in Southern Africa.

Once the hour was up, we were then moved to the scanning room.

This is probably the most expensive donut you've ever seen.  It is one of two 128-Slice PET-CT Scanner machines, the best technology in the country. 

To demystify this, PET means Positron Emission Tomography and CT means Computed Tomography.  By combining these two scanners in this machine, you can get a functional scan (PET) which tells how things work, and an anotomical scan (CT) that shows structure and location of the naughty tumours.  So the PET-CT scan tells the doctors who are looking after Alex how the different parts of his body are functioning and they can overlay this on an outline of his body (provided by the machine as well) and they can then really accurately determine exactly where these functions are occuring.  And so they'll know exactly which areas to treat.  This is why they inject the FDG - this is essentially ordinary glucose with a radioactive tag and it acts as the tracer.  One other advantage of having his scan is that at various stages of Alex's treatments, the doctors will be able to determine if his tumours have responded to the different treatments such as the radiotherapy and leter the chemotherapy.

So Alex was strapped into the slab and made as comfortable as possible.  He had to lie very still for the duration of the scan - about 20 minutes.  After this, we went to another room where they removed the cannular and then we went back to the waiting room.  They came out very quickly with a CD, and then we could leave.

Most times when you go out to get a CD, it's a quicker trip into Virgin Records or similar.  You usually get to play the CD in your car on the way home, and then you burn it to your computer once home.

We took a detour on the way home to Cafe Ism, near Eveleigh markets.  We'd never stopped there before and had driven past on numerous occasions, always promising ourselves that "one day" we'd try it.  And today just happened to be THE "one day".

Today was another pefect Spring day, although a tad cooler than the past couple of days.  But the sun was out, the trees were magnificent and could you imagine a better office to be in than this one?



 

 After the past few hours at hospital, and then doing some work at "the office", it was time to tuck into some well earned brunch.

We seem to be in a lucky period as Alex's appetite is returning and the food tastes quite normal.  The amount of tablets he has to consume at two hourly intervals would fill most people up, so with all of those it's lucky that food still has its taste for now.

After brunch, we went to Alex's office to pack some orders and deal with some of the paperwork.  Then we headed home.  Alex loaded the CD into his laptop and we had a look.  The best way to describe it would be to think of "Elvis on a Rope".  Remember the fad of a few years ago when it was almost common to see people with Elvises jumping around dangling from their rear view mirrors?

Well, if you set the body scan to a fast forward, it was a bit like that.  We could see the body outline, and a lot of different shades of blobs.  For those of you who are reading "Fifty Shades of Grey", this would be the Department of Molecular Imaging's online 'chorus line' version.

We will have to wait until the end of next week to have the blobs and squiggles translated and for now, it's way too dangerous to try and guess or google.

So we had a quick break and then headed back to RPA for today's Glowing Session!  This is now becoming an established routine, and meeting the same people in the waiting room each day we're now all at the stage where there are plenty of nods, smiles and comments.

All up, a full on hospital day but with a few extra highlights.