“Its a crazy idea captain…but it might just work…!
Having a PET scan sounds quite cosy. It conjures up an image of a cat curled up by the fire with a cup of hot chocolate. But PET actually stands for Positron emission tomography; which doesn’t conjure comforting images at all.
It works by injecting the patient with a radioactive material that will light up any cancer cells like glow in the dark warning signs once you’re in the scanner. So, this is to make sure that the low to intermediate risk cancer I have in my prostate is confined to it, or if there is some elsewhere – which would be a different ballgame altogether.
In my case, the scan was carried out in the also slightly alarmingly titled “Nuclear Medicine Department” at the Royal Free. This is at the end of a very, very long windowless grey corridor in the deep interior of the hospital. As you turn into this, the door immediately on the left has a bright black and yellow sign on it warning of a “sheer drop” in case anyone opens it to go in. This is because they are replacing a floor slab, so sensible enough to warn people they’d pay a rapid and unexpected visit to the basement if they went in, but the sense of hazardous bottomless pit is inevitable.
There is a strict demarcation in the waiting room between the room itself, tucked away to the left of reception, and the area where soon to be radioactive patients hang out for the duration. This extends to the toilet, which is out of bounds to anyone who’s had a radioactive jab or taken some radioactive tablets. I suppose this is to keep us separate from the people just waiting.
But its slightly odd, because part of the procedure is that you get injected with a diuretic, and given a glass of water, to clear you well and truly out before having the scan. As you have to wait for an hour while the radioactive stuff gets itself all round your system, so you might as well be having a purge at the same time. So, with several of us on the go at any one time there must be quite a bit of vaguely luminous wee heading for the sewers. Not concentrated enough to be much of a problem though And I don’t think there are any mutant ninja turtles down there. I was thinking, on my fourth or fifth toilet trip, however, that a large cappuccino would have done the trick just as well, and been a bit more pleasurable.
The radioactive jab went in with a slightly nicking sensation at the catheter, but hardly any sensation at all in the body – which I hadn’t expected.
The scan itself is quick and silent. The images it picks up are radiating from the patient, so it doesn’t use the magnets, and there’s no whirrs and thunks. You don’t even have to take off anything metal. Standard MRIs must be a real pain for anyone with piercings, especially if they miss one.
So, just a quick look to check for a fly, just in case, then lie down flat and still and you’re elevated up backwards and in, a bit like Virgil heading for Thunderbird 2, but not going anywhere.
It takes ten minutes. In the absence of noises to focus on and try to make into some sort of musical pattern, I spent the time counting. This is because the one distraction I did have was that the diuretic was still working and I wanted to know how long I had to hold out for. They give you an incontinence pad just in case – first time for everything but unlikely to be the last – but even so. Ten lots of 60s and another 15 before I was hummed back out and down. “Don’t get up yet”…they had no idea.
