How To Get Through Your PET/MRI Scan

You'll wish you'd asked for the ear plugs. They offered you the headphones and you thought you'd be fine. You had the sense to remove your contacts. Confined to a motionless reclining state, most people my age find themselves waking only when the mechanical voice tells them to breath, exhale, and stop breathing. When I followed instructions, I felt proud, holding my breath for a really long time. 

Here's what it really sounds like inside the tube: fifty jackhammers backed by sledgehammer-swinging dwarfs with a few howls thrown in. I don't recommend the aesthetics.

But like many a mom, I can sleep in most places, especially when compelled to lie still. I can tell you I had strange dreams.

A few tips:

(1) Pee before you lie down. At least twice. You'll be in there a long time: 20-45 minutes.

(2) Don't have claustrophobia

(3) Don't be surprised when you're asked to remove anything that might have metal in it (they even gave me a surgical mask since the FFP2 has metal wiring over the nose).

(4) You'll get green or blue scrubs to wear. Pretend you're an extra on Gray's Anatomy. You get to keep your underwear and socks.

(5) Sound effects: imagine a lunatic, bizarrely unharmonious anvil chorus. Try to distract yourself by playing the real thing in your head:

I'm told the newer machines actually play music. How you hear it over the "clang, clang!" and "whomp, whomp!" and "yowl, yowl" I can't imagine. 

(6) When the technician injects the radioactive dye, ask if you'll light up like a Christmas tree. Ha ha, but no hugging pregnant women or toddlers. I tried to steer clear of any female large of belly on the tram ride home.

(7) Drink lots of water (at least a liter) to get rid of said dye. No wine today!

(8) Understand you'll feel disoriented after the procedure and spend a minute figuring out where you are and how to find your way from the bowels of the hospital building back to where you came from. Think of Dante emerging from the Inferno.

The Latest Breast Cancer Boondoggle

Ladies, if you can just stay awake forever, you can keep metastasis at bay! That's the conclusion many of us are drawing from this latest finding indicating metastatic spread of breast cancer accelerates during sleep. And I quote:

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) generated during the night divide more quickly and therefore, have a higher potential to metastasize compared with those generated during the day. This could be explained by the circadian rhythm hormones (melatonin, testosterone, and glucocorticoids) regulating CTC generation and, as a consequence, insulin promoting tumor cell proliferation in a time-dependent manner.

At times like this,  I find Mr. Bean's methods during his overnight drive to Cannes particularly amusing. After trying and failing to stop his sleepy head from hitting the steering wheel, he relies on the snores of his companions, the cigarette lighter, self-slapping and biting, and finally a box of matches, with which he holds his eyes open, to keep himself awake.

In how-many-angels-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin fashion I wonder what else those circulating tumor cells might enjoy doing when one is sleeping, besides divide, amoeba-like. Surely they might be inclined to entertain themselves in other ways. Metastasizing must get boring after a while--perhaps instead they might knit up the ravelled sleeve of care? Or just hang out and have a drink or two, while eating chocolates or candied ginger? If they're a part of me, they might have my tastes. Yeah, they might. I'll drink to that.