Life, Cancer, Etc.
Life, Cancer, Etc.
What's a PET Scan Like?
If you're dealing with cancer, you'll likely get a PET scan at some point. It shouldn't be scary, but we often fear the unknown. For me, getting PET scans is painless; it just takes time. In this episode, we walk through a basic outline of what a PET scan is and how the process works. You can find more info on Moffitt Cancer Center's website: https://moffitt.org/diagnostic-services/radiology-diagnostic-imaging-and-interventional-radiology/services-and-locations/pet-scans/
NOTE: I am not a medical professional. Everyone on the "Life, Cancer, Etc." podcast is sharing their own experiences, not giving medical advice.
Photo © 2019 Heidi Bragg
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I'm Heidi brag and this is life cancer, et cetera. My goal with this podcast is to connect you with stories and resources that help you feel happier, more resilient and less stressed, especially when you're going through hard times this week. I wanted to give you a little bit of an introduction to what a pet scan is, and I'm not a doctor, but I can give you a lay person's description of how that works. I've had probably, I don't know, at this 0.8 or 10, because everything keeps changing and they have to keep checking. So, um, since I've had them at three different facilities, I'm guessing that my experience is pretty representative of what most people will go through. So pet pet stands for positron emission tomography test. And what a pet scan does is it uses, um, it uses radioactive emissions to detect changes at the cellular level. So for example, an MRI or a CT can show you changes in the body that are visible, like, uh, a mass or, um, swelling or those kinds of things. But the neat thing about a pet scan is that it can show you cellular changes before something's gotten really out of hand. So the process for me is I go into the facility. I get checked in, uh, then I'm usually in one waiting room. And at that point, uh, when my appointment time starts, they'll call me in and I will have a phlebotomist or a nurse place, an I V line. Now at some facilities, that's in a separate area at some facilities, that's in conjunction with the next step. So if it's in a separate area, you go back to the waiting room and then the pet scan technician will come and get you and take you back to another area. And in that area, they will, um, seat you in a chair and, uh, run and get, they'll ask you a bunch of questions and everything they ask if you're pregnant or nursing, or, um, I think there are a couple of other questions, but those are the main ones because they don't want to inject you with this radioactive element. That's in a glucose or a sugar base before they know if you know, there's a possibility you could be pregnant, or if it's something you could pass through breast milk, et cetera, once they've determined that they go back to another area and they have this little, they call it their fancy purse someplaces, but it's this little, uh, tote box it's tiny. And it's made out of it's lined with lead. And in that box, they have this syringe filled with a sugar based liquid that contains a radioactive element and what that does. And it's not something that can harm you. It doesn't give you radiation poisoning or anything like that, but it's something that will go through your bloodstream. Someplaces. You inhale it. I think for certain types of lung cancer, but everyone I've gotten, even when they had concerns about things in my lungs, I've done it through an IV. So they will inject you with this radioactive element. And then you go to a waiting area at different waiting area. They usually have like these big recliners and they bring a warm blanket and some glasses of water. Cause they want you to stay hydrated and you sit and wait for an hour and a half so that this radioactive element can move all the way through your bloodstream and throughout your body, once that point is done, they take you back to the pet machine and the pet machine. It's kind of like a CT or MRI machine. It looks somewhat similar and then they will do the scan of whatever part of the body they're concerned about. Or in my case, they do a full body scan that can happen in one of two ways. They can do it all in one shot, quote unquote, where they do head to toe. And that usually takes about 35 to 45 minutes depending. Or they can do it in two shots, which is where they do the upper half of your body and the lower half of your body separately. And you, they had me flip midway through like, I they'd stop it. They come into the room again. They have me, um, turn around 180 degrees and then they scan the other half of my body. So the last two or three of them I've gotten, have been in one shot. And I'm about, um, between five, seven and five eight, and how long the scan takes depend on depends on how tall you are because they go very slowly over the entire body. And what happens is if you have an area of increased metabolic activity, and that could be something as simple as, uh, I had a knee injury. And so obviously my body was, was putting a lot of resources to that area, trying to repair that knee injury and that fired on my pet scan. So they call it firing. So when you look at a pet scan and your doctor will show you, if you ask, when you look at a pet scan, there are certain areas that because there's a lot of metabolic activity, those cells are moving really quickly, uh, multiplying really quickly, and those cells need glucose. And so they absorb a lot. That area absorbs a lot more of that radioactive element in the glucose base, the sugar base than other areas of the body would that had just doing normal things. And so they look at those areas in particular, they see if, you know, have you had an injury, have you had whatever? And the areas that fire on the pet scan are usually areas that they're either watching that have been injured or, um, something that's been a concern they knew was there. And they're checking to see if the area that's metabolically active has increased or decreased in size and I've had both happen. And it still, uh, it wasn't a recurrence of the cancer, but it was an area that was more metabolically active. So part of the preparation for getting a pet scan is the day before you don't do any strenuous exercise, because think about it. If you do strenuous exercise, like you lift weights, particularly heavyweights, then you're going to have all those microscopic muscle tears that are getting repaired all over your body. So your whole, body's going to show up bright on the pet scan. You also don't eat any carbs because you don't want a whole lot of available sugars in your body when they inject you with this radioactive element in a glucose or sugar base. That means that only the stuff they're injecting will be, you know, firing or showing up on the pet scan. If I have a bunch of sugars in my body, like if I ate a ding-dong or something, right before I went in that sugar would still be coursing through my bloodstream. So as they inject this radioactive dye in the sugar base, they'd have sugar all over the place, the radioactive stuff and the stuff I got from the ding-dong. So it's really important the day before. And the day of that you eat according to the diet, they've given you for example, the day before I eat vegetables and protein, that's all I eat. I don't eat any carbs at all because I want to make sure that they get very good, very clear pictures on my pet scan. I'm trying to think if there's anything else important that you need to know. That was a anyway, that's a good overview of what it's like. If you have any specific questions, you can message me on Instagram or on Facebook or on the page for the podcast, life cancer, et cetera on either of those platforms. I'm on Twitter too, and just post the podcast there. But I don't really look at Twitter because it's just a little bit too much social media for my mental health. Anyway, if you, if you have questions at all, though, don't hesitate to drop them in one of those places. And I'd be more than happy to either answer it based on my experience or ask an expert to get more clarification on whatever it is you're concerned about or wondering about. Also, if you have a minute, please subscribe and like, and share the podcast. I appreciate the people who did it last week. We had 30 new people do that last week and it helps get our, our rankings in searches for podcasts about cancer. It helps rank us a little bit higher, so hopefully we can help more people and answer more questions. If you know somebody who needs to go in for a pet scan or has a family member who's going in and would like to know a little bit in advance about how the process works. Please share this episode with them. As you go around the world this week, please do something nice for somebody else. Then look for the good, count your blessings and make it a great week. Thanks for listening.
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