Fixin' To Get Ready For The Next Step- Surgery!

Last week, I had another PET scan. Not an intensive investigation from our dog Zeus, but a Positron Emission Tomography where they can see everything inside my body. They injected me with a radioactive sugar that makes cancer cells glow during the test and takes thousands of pictures from every angle. Unfortunately they require your blood sugar levels to be under 200, and my first reading was 204. The second prick was 238. She called the PET guru and they gave her the go ahead to run the test. Whew! Once the dye is injected, I had to wait an hour for it to reach every nook and cranny. Once I was in the machine, the scan only takes 20 minutes. This time she let me see the overall image and I could tell there were squiggly things inside me, but she didn't zoom in so I could see the tumor site, so it would be a week before I learn the results.

Tuesday was the big day. I had an appointment for fluids since I'm still dehydrated, although I was able to drink water last weekend! An appointment with my Oncologist Dr. Agrawal, and my surgeon Dr. White. Dr. White's PA showed us the results of the PET scan in detail, starting from my brain down the entire esophagus. She was pretty good at identifying what we were looking at on the way down and stopped at the blockage. It's still mostly closed off from allowing food to pass, but it was pretty clear that very little could still get around it, so no steak anytime soon.

The results showed no active cancer cells in the area! The surgeon came in and checked my side to be sure he could access it with his scopes and explained the procedure and what to expect. Basically, a few holes, then a day or so in ICU before heading to a room for a week or so. Yeah, sounds like fun to me! Let's get this thing scheduled already. He looked at the calendar and said possibly the first week in October, depending on a stress test and approval from my Cardiologist,Dr. Kelly and some tests he scheduled for next week.

I called my Cardiologist's office for an appointment and the first available was the second week of October. Eeeek! I need it sooner than that, so I left a message with his Nurse with my info. She called me back last night and said she'd work on it and get me in as fast as possible. You may recall, I have a history of issues with getting timely appointments and showing up at the wrong place at the right time.

Today, Thursday, I had an appointment for fluids at 12:30 and the Radiologist, Dr. Coradetti at 2:00. As I was getting ready to leave this morning, I got a call from Dr. Kelly's office that they had an opening at 2:45 today. Yep, I will make it somehow! There's no telling when the next opportunity may be. I figured if I went early, got the fluids early, I could go down to see Dr. Coradetti earlier and still make it down to Dr. Kelly's office down the road a little ways. I checked in after my fluids for the radiologist. Shortly his Nurse came out and said he was running a half hour late and it would be a while. I told her about the stress test and she said to go for it, and come back afterwards. I asked her how late Dr. Coradetti would be in the office and she replied "until everybody has been seen", and I was on the list to be seen. 

We dashed out and down the street and arrived at Dr. Kelly's office a little early. It didn't take long for them to call me back, hook me up to the ECG and throw me on the treadmill. Mind you, only recently like, the last week, have I had enough energy to make it out to the car, now I'm on a treadmill. Fortunately this wasn't a full test, he just wanted me to go long enough to wear me out and see how I did. I done good!

We dashed back to Duke Raleigh Cancer Center and re-checked in for the follow up appointment for the radiologist. He was pleased with my results, and explained why surgery was needed as the next step and set up an appointment for January. 

You should know by now nothing runs that smoothly in my life. On our way to Knightdale on Monday, Keith's water pump went bad and threw the belt off in front of Knightdale International Airport, Car sales, and bait. We lucked out and got a tow truck in 20 minutes and got it back home. I've never seen a car water pump with 18 bolts of three different sizes before, but GM sure made one! 

The whole mechanical luck continued when the battery died on my car. No biggie since the parking deck at Duke is angled and it would be easy to get it rolling and pop the clutch to start it. That works when the battery has enough juice to run the computer and injectors, but being a full Moon, it did not work. Fortunately a nice man jumped it and got us home, so now I have a new battery!

Ask me if I'm stupid enough to ask "what else can happen?"