FESTIVE SPECIAL

I arrive a few minutes early for my PET scan procedure at the Sunnybrook Medical Centre on Friday afternoon. A cheery receptionist directs me to the basement level of the Odette Cancer Building. Nary an electronic device is visible in the busy waiting room, a testament to the earnest grey haired crowd I find myself in. After a few minutes, a nurse leads me to a change room area where I’m asked to remove my shirt and put on a gown. I’m a bit apprehensive about today’s procedure and wearing a silly gown that I struggle to tie up behind my back adds to my sense of vulnerability. Although I’m getting weary of testing, I do hope that this one will herald the last page of my cancer story.

A different nurse injects my right arm with a radioactive tracer. This radioactive material accumulates in the organ or area of your body being examined, where it gives off a small amount of energy in the form of gamma rays. A gamma camera, PET scanner, detects this energy and with the help of a computer creates pictures offering details on both the structure and function of organs and tissues in your body.

Unlike other imaging techniques, nuclear medicine imaging exams focus on depicting physiologic processes within the body, such as rates of metabolism or levels of various other chemical activity, instead of showing anatomy and structure. Areas of greater intensity, called "hot spots," indicate where large amounts of the radiotracer have accumulated and where there is a high level of chemical or metabolic activity. In my case, such hot spots would be an indicator of the continued presence of cancer cells.

After my injection, I’m to sit quietly for thirty minutes while the tracer navigates my bloodstream.

“No reading or writing please. Just relax and listen to the music,” the nurse advises me.

Unfortunately, elevator music isn’t my thing and the fact that the alcove I’m sitting in opens to a waiting area with a blaring TV and a noisy paper shredder doesn’t help matters. Thirty minutes stretches to an  hour and I’m getting more agitated by the second. Not having eaten all day, my stomach growls with hunger.

Finally a technician named Ben leads me to the scanning room. The scanner is a large machine with a round, doughnut shaped hole in the middle, similar to a CT unit. Within the machine are multiples rings of detectors that record the emission of energy from the radiotracer in your body. Pretty amazing stuff.

Ben informs me that the thirty minute procedure is covered by OHIP and that the results from the test will be known in about a week. Suddenly I do feel my body relaxing. The rumbling in my stomach begins to subside.

I lay on a platform and soon it starts moving me like a Mikebit into the doughnut hole. The droning scanner makes me think I’m in the fuselage of a B-52 bomber. Try as I might to stay awake, before long I’m dreaming about the Festive Special at Swiss Chalet.

“You’re all done sir,” Ben calls from the loading area of the scanner, awakening me right in the middle of my decision to opt for white or dark meat.

I thank him for his assistance and as he escorts me back to the change room area, he wishes me Happy Holidays.

Now, I really am in a Special Festive mood.