#6

April 17, 2008 marked two months since I finished ABVD chemotherapy and was also the date of my first follow up PET scan.  These scans measure metabolic activity, fast dividing cancer cells show up in pretty pinks and reds- the rest of the body is a cool blue gray.  Okay, so the pinks and reds really aren't that pretty.  They mean you have cancer.  (Infections also show up, which is why one doesn't get a PET if one has a sore throat, pneumonia, etc.)  After waiting an hour for the radioactive dye injection to pulse through your veins, you enter the machine- a thirty minute scan.  

I count the entire thirty minutes.  Sixty, thirty times.  Twenty seven times to be exact.  I was only a minute off this latest time.  Not bad for a dyslexic...

During the hour long saturation process I read Sunset magazine, Elle, and then I thought.  My only thought was this:

Sickness is a part of life.  I am not singled out because I got "sick."  Everybody gets sick, it's just a matter of when.  This is an obvious thought which I am sure the majority of adults have considered.  Still, what if being alive also means you get sick?  You die.  You ail.  You'd think I would have thought this all through after my sister died and was sick for ten of her fourteen years.  Nope.