Pre-Operation Stuff

Preparations for surgery are underway. Today marked the start of "re-staging" the cancer. There are a couple of tests/diagnostics that will be done for this. Today's medical procedure was another PET scan. This procedure takes about 3 hours in total, but isn't too bad to do. Essentially, I was injected with radioactive glucose (don't worry, I won't glow in the dark). After waiting for an hour (I actually napped in a secluded little room with a wonderfully warm blanket covering me), I was placed on a movable table and run through the paces in a large tube. The tube is the PET scan machine! Essentially, the first scan takes about a 1/2 hour which covered my torso. They then scanned my head & neck. I think they might have done my legs too, but they didn't announce that one to me. Basically, for this test the radioactive glucose will "attach" to cancerous tumors/cells. This will light up for the PET scan to see. Unfortunately the scan can only see tumors as small as 1/2 cm. in size. Thus, it can miss smaller cancer hot spots that may be in existence. The good news is that nothing showed up anywhere in my body (with the exception of the esophagus & stomach as expected) the first time I had this scan. Naturally that was before chemo, so I'm fairly certain the results will be the same this time. Keep your fingers crossed!

So the next step in preparation will be a pre-operative exam, EKG, and blood work on Weds. Essentially, I'm going to get a physical! In the grand scheme of things, this should be pretty easy!