Tuesday Appointment

I find out Tuesday what the results of my PET scan are. I had the PET scan last Friday, and a good time was had by all. A good nap, anyway. The only real problem with a PET scan (other than having to have one, that is) is that I'm always awakened from a nap twice. I fall asleep after they give me the radioactively tagged sugar, and then they wake me up and put me in the machine. I fall asleep again, and then they wake me up when it's done.

All that falling asleep and waking up leaves me with mental whiplash. I also think I react mildly to the tagged sugar. For a few hours after the PET scan I always feel kind of slow and block-headed.*

So Tuesday I find out the results. I'm pretty confident of a good result. I don't have any reason to believe it's back - I have no lumps or bumps, I don't have any of the weird B-symptoms that come with that kind of lymphoma, and most importantly, I just don't feel like I have cancer. Wishful thinking, maybe, but this isn't exactly my first rodeo and I don't thin I'm trying to fool myself.

I know what it feels like. In December 2008 I knew I had cancer, I knew I was dying, and I could feel it happening. I don't feel that way now. I don't even feel like I did after the tandem bone marrow transplant, when the cancer was *almost* dead, but I could still feel a suspicious (and very discouraging) lump in my neck.

As far as I can tell with the diagnostic tools at my disposal, it's still gone.

But I'm still just slightly anxious. It's a Big Deal, in capital letters; it isn't like going into Discount Tire and finding out that they can't fix the hole in my flat tire.



*Some might argue that I'm ALWAYS block-headed and slow, and am only aware of it after PET scans.