I'm positively radiant!

Yeah for real, I am! Thanks to the injected isotope Fluorine-18! I went for PET scan and they apparently had to make me radioactive to see all the stuff going on in my body (looking for more tumors). When I was done they told me not go close to any pregnant women or small children, haha, yeah I think I can mange to stay away for a few hours (because that's so likely to happen anyway)! ;) But as you can see from the wiki-link, the isotope has a very short half-life so I don't think I'll be getting super-powers from this dose..

Other than being radioactive it was a hell of a day (not in the good way).. First I had an early blood-sample session at 8:40 which was supposed be done by 9:00, so I could have a bone marrow examination right after. But things don't always work out as they should in hospitals.. The nurse somehow totally failed to find a good vein and kept digging in my arm with the needle, which made me feel ill, so I told her to stop! So now we had to wait for the colour to return to my face (they told me I was a little pale), but at the same time they started calling from upstairs that it was time for my marrow biopsy. Ok, so no blood yet, marrow first! And this was a lovely experience.. NOT! They laid me down on my stomach, gave me few shots of local anesthesia, cut my skin a little and started brutally drilling the back of my hipbone. It's a funny feeling when you have a doctor putting their entire bodyweight on a corkscrew (check the pic!) looking thing while slowly drilling deeper into my bone. And you can't get anesthesia inside your bone, so once in there, it hurts! So they took a biopsy and they were supposed to extract some liquid marrow as well, but that didn't happen. She poked around for a while in there too (with somekinda weird (but HUGE) needle) but couldn't find a spot with liquids. Thank GOD she gave up after the third try!


Anyway, back to the blood-lab! For some reason they now also wanted an EKG and a urine-sample along with the blood (only you have to keep it in the bladder for 4h+ for it to count).. So first the EKG, which took ages because the nurse doing that had like graduated yesterday! Then back to the vein-digging room.. This time they got the blood flowing nicely (6 vials! New record!), but I had to lie down during the procedure because I had gotten an image of being a pussy who faints while having blood taken. Funny how I felt all good this time when they actually put the needle where the blood flows instead of trying to dig a ditch in my arm. Needless to say they didn't get a urine sample because I wasn't warned to hold my pee for 4h, so I got a cup to fill at home..


After all this crap I still had a PET scan to go to! I was booked for 10:00, which naturally didn't happen so I was there at about 10:35.. I even had to change hospital buildnings in between so quite optimistic scheduling from their part. At the PET-center (yeah, for real! TYKS 14A) I only had to fill in a form, change shirts and lie down in a bed. Then comes the next pro-nurse to take a crack at my veins because they had to insert a cannula to inject the radioactive stuff. Naturally she fails as well! The first try was on top of my hand (where I have HUGE and very visible veins), but she told me nothing was going in because she might've punctured the vein. And they also do a test with saline-solution, if it stings, the cannula is not in place. The second attempt went a bit better but she couldn't get the needle in very deep, in fact it was barely in at all, but the saline went in nicely so she went to get the isotope solution. In a few minutes she came back with a massive lead box with one single syringe inside. She injected it nice a slow and then I had to lie still for 50min!! I didn't even get to read anything because any muscle activity could make the isotope solution gather in the muscles, because the oxygen atom that is replaced by F-18 to generate FDG (Fluorodeoxyglucose) is required for the next step in glucose metabolism in all cells. The scan itself took about 30min and after that I got to go home. I think the time was 14:00, time sure flies when you're having fun.