An Itchy Loaf of Bread

In preparation for the PET scan the nurse began injecting my arm with a solution of a glucose derivative that had been radioactively labeled with fluorine-18.  With a short half-life of only…wait, wait, this isn’t a chemistry class.  And then I began sipping a solution containing an organic iodine compound that would give better contrast to the images from the CT scans. It had an odd sort of “I’ve been cleaning up a dirty basement or garage” taste, and believe me, it won’t make it into the Coca-Cola Freestyle lineup.  After waiting for an hour so that my cells would absorb the PET chemical, I was ushered into the room housing the large cylindrical machine that would do both the CT and PET scans.

Another nice lady helped me climb onto a long, thin table with a pillow made of a cushioned U-shaped rigid frame. This would make it easy for even me to keep my head still.  She put a cushion under my calves so that everything would be positioned properly for the scans.  It also helped my formerly-broken-but-now-repaired-with-titanium-parts back feel comfortable, and I was thankful for that.  She hooked up my IV to a solution of another CT contrast dye and then a motor moved me into the machine.  The dye gave me a nice warm sensation through various parts of my body, particularly noticeable in my pelvic region.

“HOLD YOUR BREATH,” the machine commanded me in a stern male voice that probably came from some technical guy who hadn’t had any human contact for 6-12 months except through texting.  Deep breath, hold it.  I watched the top of the cylinder over me as the machine slowly sucked me into its bowels.  And then it stopped.  “BREATHE,” he ordered.  You don’t need to tell me that twice.  And my body moved back out.  “HOLD YOUR BREATH.”  I noticed that there were little labels in various places above me that said, “LASER APERTURE Do not stare into the beam.”  And they were all upside down!  That was annoying.  I’m pretty sure that these labels were there in order to warn Male Machine Man so that he wouldn’t harm himself while he was aligning the many parts in the scanner.  “BREATHE.”  Oh, yes, yes, yes, I will.  “HOLD YOUR BREATH.”  I had no idea that I could still hold my breath for such a long period of time.  And out my body went again.  “BREATHE.”  I was starting to feel like a large loaf of bread in an oven, with somebody pulling me out every now and then in order to see if I was done.

The nice lady disconnected my IV, had me put my arms by my sides, and then gently locked me in place with two huge pieces of Velcro so that I wouldn’t move.  I’m pretty sure that this is what the Inquisition would have been like if Spain had been more compassionate and politically correct.  And then the large EZ Bake oven started back up again, baking me one section at a time.  Thankfully MMM wasn’t barking orders at me anymore.

You can think about a lot of things during a 30-minute PET scan.  Things like, “If that smoke detector on the ceiling has americium in it, couldn’t that interfere with the scan?”  You notice the whirring of the machine, the sound of the HVAC system, the flow of air over your body, and the local country-western station that was being played in the background just quietly enough so that you couldn’t understand most of the words. It sounded something like somebody gargling with corned-beef hash.  And then the itching started.

The worst kind of itch is the one you can’t scratch.  During one of the times that my head and part of my torso were sticking out of the far end of the machine I suddenly developed an itch.  I didn’t know if it was due to the AC blowing on me or the result of a traitorous hair sticking me in the forehead.  Either way it didn’t matter–it just itched.  Helpfully the inquisitor had made sure that the strait jacket was snug.  I’m pretty sure that Houdini worked at a burger joint until one day during a PET scan he realized that he could scratch his head only if he could get out of the Velcro.  I manfully endured it, and in a few minutes it went away, shortly before the right edge of my right eye started itching.

And then there are the more serious thoughts. What would it be like to go through this alone?  What do people who don’t have relationships with God think about during PET scans?  In an email one of my sisters-in-Christ reminded me of Deuteronomy 33:27:  “The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”  Why wasn’t I worried about the outcome of these tests?  Why wasn’t I afraid?  I again heard the words of Christ, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  (Hebrews 13:5)  Although I was in the scanner, God was gently cradling me in His arms, comforting me.