I have confidence in me!

A while ago, I went to the radiology department at the university hospital for my quarterly MRT scan. The procedure is fairly standard. I arrived early and identified myself, using my driver’s license, to the assistant, who recognised me from previous visits but had to follow protocol. I was fitted with a tube into one of the veins in my arm for the contrast agent. The agent used is a gadolinium III salt. I have asked for information about which salt is used, but not received a satisfactory answer. Again, following protocol is the most important part of the treatment. For the scan, I was strapped onto a board, had my head securely fixed in place and inserted into the scanner. An MR-scanner makes a lot of noise, so I was equipped with ear plugs and a set of headphones. I chose to listen to the Beatles – a good choice as suggesting most of the music that I normally listen to results in perplexed expressions from the personnel operating the scanner. The scan went well resulting in good quality pictures. Patients are not permitted to see their scans until an expert has had the chance to examine and interpret them.

A week or so later, I checked my medical journal to see that everything was normal, normal being “The patient has a hole in his head and shows no signs of activity”. This time, the notes stated that there were signs of activity in the vicinity of the aforementioned hole. I was a bit worried (understatement) about this and called to my contact nurse at the oncology department and suggested further investigation with a PET-scan using isotope labelled methionine. The medical team agreed, and I was at the PET-centre a few days later. This scan confirmed that there was some activity present, and my case was, therefore, presented at a meeting attended by the leading experts at the hospital. The consensus at the meeting that the observed changes were small but significant and should be followed up after a few weeks to see how things develop.

The few weeks have now passed and the follow up showed that the area with activity has developed to such a degree that surgery is probably necessary to remove as much of the developing tumour as possible, preferably as soon as possible. The course of action is a PET-scan tomorrow using C-11 labelled methionine to map the extent of the tumour then surgery sometime soon, hopefully next week.

Given the options available: surgery possibly followed by chemotherapy, only chemotherapy, i.e. no surgery or no action at all, I think that opting for surgery is a foregone conclusion. One might say “a no-brainer! (pun intended).

The wait for decisions and action is a bit worrisome, but I have been through this before, and I have confidence in the medical team and my own strength to get through it, and above all, the support of those around me.

We will update the blog as things develop. In the meantime, I have already started work on new posts for the future.