So I had a PET-scan recently.   It was almost pleasant.   Really.

These are tests I have to have periodically, an irritating necessity, just something I have to do to make sure that my “history with high-grade lymphoma” is staying where it belongs  —  in the past.

Don’t you love that phrase, by the way?  “High-grade lymphoma.”  Makes it sound almost desirable, doesn’t it?  Like something everyone should want — “I’ll have a little high-grade lymphoma with my coffee.”  “High-grade?  Damn, I wish I could get me some.”  Maybe even something that fuels your car — it certainly moves fast enough:  “Absolutely, fill the tank.  Don’t you dare use that cheap stuff, I only want high-grade lymphoma in my Hummer stretch limo.”

But I do like the first part of that phrase the doctors are using these days, “a patient with a history of . . .”  History.  That’s something I can handle.

My cancer’s in complete remission, and they hope it is “cured,” though what that means exactly, no one knows.  There is no five- or ten-year prognosis for my cancer, because they have only known about it for about 4-5 years and have been successfully treating it for only 3-4.  Nothing funny in that, really.  But there is hope.

As Mark Twain once pointed out, there’s no need for humor in heaven.

My transplant doctor did some complex blood testing; she says that my blood chemistry balance is perfect, fully recovered from the high-dose chemo that wiped my immune system clean before the stem-cell transplant.   This, she tells me, is my “new normal.”

Now, I have some mixed feelings about that.  On one hand, that’s great news — better news than anything I dared hope for.  On the other hand, this “new normal” takes some getting used to.  The doc tells me I can eat anything I want now — so long as my body can handle it.  Terrific news — but the last two times I ate in a restaurant, I spent more staring at the inner door of a bathroom stall than I did at the table.  And there wasn’t even any witty graffiti to read.  Don’t worry — I didn’t leave any, either;  it was actually a nice restaurant.  And no one else got sick, even though they finished my lunch for me.  My “new normal.”  At least I’ll save some money.

I’m no longer neutropenic (a really low white-count that means your body lays out a welcome mat and puts a light in the window for any germ out there — “Come on in, the eating here is fine!”), which means that the world is a lot less scary now (see my earlier post, It Takes All Kinds, about germs in public places).  But whenever I get sick, it seems to take 3-6 weeks to get rid of, and I develop two or three bacterial infections along the way.  I’ve had more antibiotics in the past year than I’ve had in the past 40.  Between chemo treatments, they kept me pumped full of the stuff plus antivirals, because my blood counts were so low that I couldn’t afford infections.  Now, getting infections seems to be my new job.  The doctors call it “re-training” my immune system.

That’s some on-the-job training I could do without.  But it’s better than being unemployed.

So — the “new normal.”

In addition to the blood chemistry, it means I also get to become acquainted with my new brain.  There’s this thing all cancer patients know about — called “chemo brain.”  Really.  That’s the fancy medical terminology.  Chemotherapy is rough on cancer cells, but it’s pretty feisty with the cells in certain parts of your brain, too.  They’ve actually done studies showing that post-chemo patients have trouble with things like finding a recipe, making a list of the ingredients needed and shopping for them.  The list and the shopping tends to be incomplete.  If you make the list for us, we can get the things on it, but until you realize this, cooking becomes an adventure in improvised ingredients.  Which isn’t always a bad thing.   I only found out that this was a documented effect of chemo brain after the worst of it had past.  I had just thought I was an idiot.

Organizing things remains a challenge, though, at least for me.  So does remembering.  Or finishing anything I start.  My house has become a trail of half-finished tasks — laundry half folded, dishes half done, groceries half put away, books laying around all over, half finished.

Okay, I can’t lay the blame for that last one on the chemo.

But I now have the attention span of a gnat.  It’s like I’ve become my children.  Can’t keep focused to save my soul.  I’ll be washing the dishes, and out the window, a bird will fly toward the bedroom.  Which will make me wonder if the bed’s made.  Without even drying my hands, I’ll wander back there, only to notice the half-folded laundry as I pass the couch.  I’ll stop, and fold a few things.  A stray thought will cross what’s left of my brain . . .

And I’ll remember that I started this blog, writing about PET-scans, which I mentioned in the first line, then started off on another trail altogether.

Chemo-brain.  It’s an adventure.

But it has its perks.  Any time I can’t stay on topic or come up with a good transition, I can just blame it on chemo-brain.  Maybe this “new normal” isn’t so bad.

So.  PET scans.  The PET-scan went well — almost a pleasant experience.

No, I wouldn’t really go that far. But how different it is when the nurse/tech is efficient, gentle, and more concerned with safety and sterile conditions than even I am.  The last time I had a PET-scan, the nurse/tech was a guy that made Sponge Bob look like an intellectual.  And his idea of adequate cleanliness was that he didn’t actually wipe the IV needle on his pants before jamming it in my vein.  But this nurse was lovely.  She even left the metal-encased syringe with the radioactive solution in another room until the IV was all set and flushed with saline. And the radiologist doing the scan this time had a sense of humor, too.

All in all, for being injected with a radioactive tracer and spending an hour in a claustrophobe’s dream tube with my arms above my head, being bombarded with more radiation, it was almost fun.

Naw. Continue reading →