CT & Bone Scan

Today I had my two scans at East Surrey hospital. I slept so badly last night, I'm so fecking terrified. My mind is going to some really bad places, running down rabbit warrens, on and on, it's impossible to stop it. I know I don't know yet but I'm pretty convinced it's going to be shitty news.

Anyway, I had to be nil by mouth from 06:40, 4 hours before the CT scan (not hard, I can't eat at the moment anyway, I projectile vomit, 6lbs lost since Thursday...). We drove to the hospital with me trying to drink water (you have to drink a litre in an hour before the scan) and not vom. We signed in at the reception and then I was led away, told to put a gown on and was then led through to the CT machine. I had a drip thing put in my hand and started crying. The team were really nice and explained everything that was going on but lying under the whirring machine brought everything crashing down and smacked me in the face. Basically they are checking my organs for cancer. If there is cancer in the organs I will die from it. Cancer in the organs or bones is treatable but not curable, and that's the rabbit warren I've been going down.

Then I went round to nuclear medicine and had a radioactive dye inserted into my veins and was told to go away for 3 hours to give the dye time to get around my body.

Rob and I left and went for some lunch but I am literally finding it impossible to eat, everything makes me want to hurl. In the end after a lot of debate I chose an open chicken sandwich, I managed about 8 mouthfuls before I had to run to the loo to be sick. I'm in such a state of overwhelm my body just rejects everything. It's so bad as I need to keep my strength up but I'm finding it so hard.

We head back to nuclear medicine and I have the bone scan, it takes 22 minutes exactly. I'm lying on a bed (my head saw it as a mortuary slab - told you I was in a dark place) and a camera starts at the top of my body taking photo after photo until it reaches my toes. And then it's done.

I should have the results from these scans and my biopsy all in one go next Tuesday. Basically if it is cancer, they want to be able to tell me everything all in one go. It's shit I have to wait but it does make sense that way.

Fucksticks

P.S. Scans are shit but sparkly shoes are always amazing.

Nuclear Medicine

Today I had a Nuclear Sentinel Lymph Node Scan with Nuclear Medicine in preparation for my operation tomorrow. I went along to the hospital and had to take off my top & bra, put on the gowns and lie down on a padded exam table. I then had an injection of a weak radioactive dye (technetium-labelled sulphur colloid) in my left boob close to the nipple. The injection itself didn't hurt but when they injected the radioactive tracer liquid it stung a little. I thought that I was going to be having the blue dye (to show up your lymph drainage) but that is actually a different injection & is going to happen tomorrow at the same time as my operation.

I then had to massage my boob for about ten minutes so the tracer liquid could move quickly through my system & as soon as it was draining properly they were able to start taking images (a process known as lymphoscintigraphy). I was still lying on the table when a radioactive slate was put underneath me and I was moved forward under a large camera. They took 3 photos, 1 on top, one slightly to the left and one to the side. The images are taken to show which nodes are receiving the liquid, which in turn indicates where the sentinel lymph node (SLN) is, so that the surgeon knows where to find it tomorrow. They then marked me under my armpit with an X again to assist the surgeon with locating the SLN tomorrow. The tracer liquid also means the surgeon can use a Geiger counter type thing during the operation to assist in the node finding.

Then I was free to go. Next blog post I'll have had the WLE.......

Pretty card from Hannah: