Scans...

So I'm flying off to the other coast to visit with my family. Lucky for Keith he'll have my scans to keep him company. Here's the deal...When you get a scan you can get a CD copy of all the images. Last week Keith and I decided to take a look at some of the images. They're cool, but some of it is pretty creepy if you ask me. Keith on the other hand is completely fascinated. I think he missed his calling and should have been a radiologist!

A Thankful Birthday!

I had a lovely birthday yesterday. Keith and Red (the dog) and I went for a nice hike at the coast. Then we headed out to Encuentro, a newish vegetarian joint here in Oakland, for a delicious dinner. I can't believe I'm now 38, holy crap!?! Of course this year is a little different, instead of just being disturbed by how fucking old I am, I'm really thankful to be around and living it up! This year has had some incredibly sucktastic times, but for the moment there is "no detectable cancer" and while I'm still bald and tired I'm feeling better and better. I'm walking more than 25 miles a week (Red loves this part!) and I'm finally back doing some sewing (heck I even sold something on Etsy). I still have a stupid number of doctor's appointments (evidenced by the $70,000+ bill from the cancer center last month), but I'm finding a new normal.

I know I've said this before, but it bears saying again... Thank you to everyone who offered support! I can't tell you how touched both of us have been by all the folks who have stepped up to lend a hand, deliver a dinner, send a care package, give a hug, send a card or an email, cover a class or stop in to check and see how things are going. While we may have been able to do it without you, I can't imagine how! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Whew!

We just back from the oncologist and it was all good news! The PET/CT shows no evidence of cancer anywhere!!! Yippee!!! I am not free of treatment; I will continue on Herceptin, keep getting my tumor markers checked every three weeks and I'll get scanned every 4 months or so.

Just to be clear, I don't have the kind of cancer that gets cured. This is great news, but the likelihood is that the cancer will come back. The hope is that Herceptin will work for a good long time and with all this monitoring we'll catch any recurrence early and knock it right back.

I'll post up about the geeky details later.

Thanks for all the support and kind words over the past 6 months. It really helps knowing that I have so many people pulling for me.

We're Baaaaack...

Keith and I are back from our trip to the U.P. It was a nice relaxing trip! It really felt like summer up there. Here in Oakland it is easy to forget what season it is.

I am feeling the cumulative effects of chemo. I'm tired out and I've got a couple mouth sores (not so bad I can't eat, just a pain). I'm going to work on building my reserves back up. Lots of healthy eating, napping and walking.

The next couple of days will be a little nerve wracking. My PET CT on Monday will tell us a lot about what comes next for me. My fingers are crossed things look good. As long as things aren't growing I'm doing pretty good, but the best case would be that they can't see anything on the PET CT. That won't mean there is no cancer left, just that it is too small for them to see. PET CT's take "slices" every 2-3mm so tiny spots can be missed.

If you haven't ever had a PET CT, they're kinda cool. It's really two scans PET (positron emission tomography) and CT (computerized tomography) combined in one. They inject you with a radioactively labelled sugar (¹⁸F-FDG). This sugar is just like a regular glucose molecule except one of the -OH groups is replaced with a radioactive isotope of Fluorine. Cells in your body that are metabolically active will take up this sugar. After they inject you with the sugar, you just sit and relax for a while. Since you aren't exercising and using any of your muscles, and cancer is very active, the areas of cancer suck up the sugar faster than everything else. As the radioactive fluorine in the sugar decays it emits a positron. The big machine you slide into during the scan detects the positrons and correlates them with the CT. A CT scan is really just a very fancy set of X rays. When combined the radiologist can see the hot spots from the the PET scan and can see where those hotspots are located within your body/organs with the CT scan. The images are really pretty cool. Maybe I'll include some in my next post.

After the PET CT you'll be slightly radioactive. It won't last long. The half-life of this isotope of fluorine isn't long (an hour and a half or so). The notes you get will instruct you to stay away from babies and make sure to flush the toilet 2x after you pee for the next 24 hours.

I'll post again on Tuesday or Wednesday, after I get the results. Visualize clear scans!