The big day is finally here. Pet scan day! What is a Pet scan you ask? A pet scan is a nuclear metabolic scan. Typical protocol goes something like this. You check in

They check your blood sugar to make sure it is below 200. Then they have you wait an hour to let the glucose spread through your body to your now starving cells. (You had to fast for this). Then yiu go through a machine that scans you from your head to your knees kind of like a CT scan, but more claustrophobic. The scan itself takes about 20 minutes. It looks for what’s called hot spots. These hit spots are areas of increased uptake of that glucose and increased metabolic activity. Since we know that cancer cells are rocking it out with devious metabolic workup more than your normal cells, those hot spots are likely to be areas of cancer. These results let you know at a cellular level where you are really starting from before you start chemo . It is usually a prerequisite to have a Pet scan before being able to participate in any clinical trials as well. Even though I have been waiting for this scan for what seems like forever, now that the day is here the reality of it is kind of hitting me like a ton of bricks. It didn’t help that I barely slept last night and woke up feeling 80 years old either. I am usually not the guest of honor at a pity party but oh man I almost threw one this morning….lol. Oh well. Time to put my party hat away. Time to dive in. I’ll let ya know how it turns out.

Dr. Katz