I’ll meet with my Oncologist tomorrow, to hear about my radiotherapy treatment plan. I’m looking forward to some info about when I’ll start, and how long the radiotherapy treatment period is likely to be.
On Thursday, I’ll have a whole-body Positive Emission Tomography (PET) scan to check for any other cancer areas. Like the other scans I had prior to my surgery, it involves first an injection of a fluid to then be activated for digital imaging. I’m well used to that idea now!
However the PET scan varies from the others in two key ways: It offers much more detailed imaging, showing the chemical function of body tissue (it will be my first full-body scan); and it uses a radioactive sugar compound, to effectively make me radioactive. The process is more involved than the CT and MRI scans, taking at least 3 hours in total (including preparation, sedation, scanning). Scan results available a few days afterwards.
I’m told it’s very safe for me but, due to the radiation, I need to steer clear of small children and pregnant women for 4 hours afterwards. I’ll make sure I don’t get any extra stuff caught in the lab-coat on the way out…