I
drove from Tallahassee to Jacksonville late Sunday so I could be ready for Monday
(yesterday). I had three scans to check for any spread of the cancer outside of
the prostate. These tests were in three separate buildings on the UF Health
campus: the hospital, a newer building called the Pavilion, and a still newer
one called the Annex (to the Pavilion). I downloaded a campus map to help me
get around.
First,
a bone scan in the Nuclear Medicine facility in the hospital basement. This started
with an injection of a radioactive tracer. The radioactive material spreads
through the body via the blood stream, and is selectively taken up by rapidly
growing bone tissue, such as from a recently broken bone or a tumor. It also permeates
various fluids in the body. Three hours later I was lying on my back while a
radioactivity-sensitive camera passed very slowly over me, head to toe, for
about half an hour. Then I turned my head, first to the left and then to the
right, while the camera scanned just my head. The only thing that was
immediately obvious in the images was an unusual hot spot between my eyes. This
is assumed to be a bead of sweat that collected where my glasses touch my face.
Between
the tracer injection and the bone scan, I had an MRI at the Pavilion annex.
This was a more detailed MRI than most, with a stronger magnet and more detailed
imaging. As usual with MRIs, it was a challenge holding still for more than
half an hour, but even so I was surprised when they told me it was nearly over.
For the last five minutes, they injected a dye into an IV they had put into my
arm earlier so they could get an image with a visual contrast to the rest of
the MRI.
After
a quick and better-than-expected lunch at the hospital cafeteria, I went back
for the bone scan described above, and then headed to the Pavilion building.
There I got blood draw for various tests. The tests included routine health
indicators, and also will help with a research project I signed up for; the
idea is to look for correlations between easily performed tests and prostate
cancer progression.
While
in the Pavilion, I got a chest x-ray—front view and side view. They had to
repeat the front view to get all of my lung area; the tech asked if I was a
runner, as that increases air capacity (volume).
That
was all for Monday, and nothing was scheduled for today…so I drove back to
Tallahassee. The power was out in our house, and had been since just after I
left Sunday afternoon. Doing a blog post then wasn’t exactly convenient. The
power came back on at 5:30 this morning, so things are back to normal.
Next:
I’ll drive back to Jacksonville tomorrow for a bone density scan. The ADT
therapy I’ll be getting can cause bone thinning, so they want to see how strong
my bones are now. After that, I expect to find out the results of this week’s
tests and learn how and when my course of treatment will continue.
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