11/7/2012:
8:15: My dad wakes me up with a phone call. Even going to bed early still doesn’t help me wake up any earlier… I have to get up because I need to be at the hospital for 9:00 for my 3rd PET Scan. I doze back off.
8:30: My dad calls me again, I jump out of bed, and head straight for the shower.
8:35: I am in the shower.
8:45: I am out of the shower.
8:55: We are heading out the house, my dad is driving me to the Yenni Center at EJGH for my PET Scan.
9:04: We get there, and I check in. They have me fill out the usual questionnaire.
9:20: The nurse comes out and gives me my two delicious cups of contrast to drink as my breakfast. I go and sit by my dad and drink up. BLAH, UGH, Disgusting, not delicious at all. I almost gag just drinking this stuff. It is supposed to be berry flavored, but ugh, can’t even talk about it.
9:30: I am brought into the back by a nurse and lead to my little room I will spend the next 1.5 hours in. I sit down, and the nurse goes and gets what she needs, she comes back and does the normal blood test procedure of putting a band around my arm having me pump my fist and flicking my arm with her fingers. She finds the vein that I shower her they use all the time for my blood test. She sticks it and then takes a little blood for the blood test. It is 159. As long as its under 200 they can do the PET Scan. If its over 200, they can’t do it because it wouldn’t give them good results because the sugar would be over saturated in the system and the cancer cells would not absorb the radioactive glucose they are about to give me as well. She then pushes the radioactive glucose into my arm. No problems until half way into the push, my arm starts burning at the injection site, I can first handle it, but I tell her something because of the pure pain, and I have a high tolerance. She stops, unscrews the radioactive glucose vile, and screws on the saline tube and pulls back, I have a good blood return so the needle is still in my vein, so its weird it is burning. She screws back on the radioactive glucose vile, and slowly pushes the rest of the radioactive glucose vile into me and then unscrews the radioactive file, and pushes the saline through the line to flush the line so that all the radioactive glucose is in me. She then pulls back a little and there is blood on the pullback, so its weird it burned. She then tapes up my arm. Puts my feet up in the Lazy Boy, and puts a blanket over me. She tells me to be quite and still, take a nap if I want, just don’t move around or do anything, and that includes using my phone or anything else, as that can affect the results. She shuts the leaving it only an inch on her way out. It’s amazing how your other senses can pick up things when everything else is shut off. I could hear a radio playing down the hall nice and clear, I was listening to the nurses talk, one nurse was having company over, and didn’t know what to cook, another nurse told him to pick up some chuck ground beef from Rouses for like $1.99 a pound that they have on sale, throw in some breadcrumbs, Italian style of course, 2 eggs, and some Tony Chachere. Form them into patties, and throw them on the grill and cook them. These people were not even talking that loud, but I could hear them loud and clear when there was no other noise pollution in my room, but me and my breathing.
11:00: The nurse comes and gets me, taking the blanket off of me, and putting my feet down. She leads me to the restroom to flush my bladder before the test, while she takes my blanket to where I will have my test done. I am done in the restroom and walk to room with the big PET Scan machine. I put my watch and my phone on the little table in the room, and then lay down on the platform. They put the foam under my knees and place my arms in position, and then they raise the platform up and press the button that sends the platform into the machine, and they leave the room. I do a full pass through the machine which I believe first takes the CT Scan images. I then am pushed out the other end of the machine, and am pulled back in 9 inches at a time for the radioactive images of the glucose to be taken. Each 9 inch section takes about 3 minutes. I am pulled all the way through, and then am greeted by the nurse on the front end when I reach there on completion. She puts my platform down, and takes the foam from under my legs. She then grabs my arm and helps me sit up on the platform so I can get up. I grab my phone and my watch, and thank both nurses on my way out. One nurse walks me back to the front doors, and that’s it, I am done.
11:30: I walk over to where my dad is sitting. He gets up, and we head on out. He asks if I am hungry, and honestly at this moment, I am not hungry, well, I am, but I am not in the mood to eat after that disgusting contrast taste. I say we should go home first, I will use the bathroom and then we can head out to grab something to eat.
11:45: We get home. I check on a few things on my computer, and do a few other things.
12:30: My dad and I head out. We are going to go to Juicy Lucy’s for lunch.
12:45: We get to Juicy Lucy’s. The theme they are going for inside is a throw back 50’s, 60’s diner, with the waitress wearing a shirt from the time, and 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s music playing the whole time. We both get sweet teas, and an order of fried mushrooms. We then order the spicy burger, 1 for each of us. They stuff their hamburgers here with the extras, so our burger is made with cheese, bacon bits combined with the meat before it is cooked, and then dipped in chicken wing sauce before its placed on the burger. The mushrooms and the burger are great! I am definitely up for coming back again!
1:45: We are heading out, and back home!
2:00: We are back home. I get a few things together to head over to the office with.
2:15: I am heading over to the office.
2:25: I am at the office. Thankfully it is a slow day. I do some administrative follow up on the work I did earlier during the week. I then did some office cleaning. I also my center monitors around my office on an elbow that I had purchased about 5 months ago. This will make it easier and more ideal to work on the computers at the office with the middle monitor being truly centered catercorner on and angle. This is the way we originally built the desk, but never had the mounts to make the monitor match the desk. Well here ya go, all done, and very nice, if you ask me. Also gave me a reason to clean my desk 🙂
8:30: I am done with my office and some cleaning. I still have a lot of cleaning left, but the organization has begun!
8:35: I am in my van.
8:45: I get home.
9:00: I heat up and eat the left over steak. I also eat some of the Pumpkin Pie from last night that I didn’t touch so that I wouldn’t hurt my blood sugar numbers for my PET scan today.
10:00: I am exhausted. I go in my room, and lay down. I pull out the computer and start doing some where, but before I know it, I crash on the computer.
11:59: Still sleeping….
