You mean I'm dead???!!!

 Dear Gentle Readers,

Many of you have probably not had a chance to read my book, "Dear Girlfriend, A Handheld Walk Through Breast Cancer".  So I thought I would use this post to share a brief chapter of the book with you.  This is a funny account of what happened while having one of many procedures during treatment.  When finished, if you want to read more about the wild ride I took with breast cancer, click here!  Enjoy!!!

 

Dear Girlfriend,

When we got back to Macon from our trip to Florida, my oncologist, Dr. Pippas, ordered a test called a Muga Scan. I was told that I needed to start chemo just as soon as my incisions were healed because chemo is the most effective if it is done within six months after the surgery. My problem was that my left breast, the side on which I had had cancer , was just not healing. After six weeks that left breast still looked just like it had right after surgery. But, I went ahead to the hospital to have the Muga Scan, a test to determine if one's blood is pumping throughout the body properly. It's important that your blood is pumping normally if you are going to do chemotherapy. The Muga Scan does not hurt. It's done at a nuclear medicine center or by a radiology tech at the hospital. You don't eat or drink anything for four to six hours before the scan and you don't use caffeine or tobacco for four to six hours before the scan. Also, remember to wear comfy clothes because you are going to be lying on a table for a couple of hours.

Before the test, the technician will inject a little bit of radioactive material into a vein in your arm. This material is sort of like dye and it will hook up with your red blood cells as they carry oxygen through your body. See, like I told you, you are on automatic. When you woke up this morning, did you say, “Okay, red blood cells, get to work and take the oxygen I'm breathing all through my body. Chop! Chop! Get to it!” No. You didn't give your red blood cells one little thought because God is controlling all the inner workings of your body, just as surely as he holds the stars in the sky and keeps you from floating off the planet by controlling the force of gravity. But, do we ever think about any of that? Heck no!

So the technician had me lie on a table and she said, “This thing up above you is a gamma camera that uses gamma rays to take pictures of how blood is going through your heart. This won't hurt, but try to lie as still as you can or the pictures will be blurry and we'll have to do it over. I'll leave you here for a few minutes. Just relax, nothing will hurt you.”

So I just lay there and thought about my blood traveling through my veins. I thought about the camera taking pictures of my heart. I was warm and cozy and unafraid until... the technician came back into the room and with no trace of a smile on her face she said, “I'm so sorry. You flatlined.”

I jumped up off the table and shreiked, “You mean I'm dead???!!!” She started laughing and said, “Well, obviously not!” I could hardly breathe and I said, “But you said I flatlined, doesn't that mean I died?” She said, “I'm so sorry! I mean the machine stopped working. The machine flatlined.” I lay back down on the table and said, “You scared me to death. I thought I had died, but just hadn't zooped up yet!” She said, “Well, I'll try to choose my words more carefully next time.” We both had a good laugh, but I 'll bet she never told anybody else that they had “flatlined.” My test came back normal, but I could not start chemo because my incisions had still not healed.