firstly, the results of the PET scan:
as a result of my oncologist BEING ON HOLIDAY, i couldn't get the most informed person to interpret the results of my scan, and had to accost poor ward nurses/doctors/patients to break down what they said and meant. the results can't really be used on their own anyway, so it's hard to make any conclusions, but here it is.
the PET scan measures cell activity, that is, how much is going on inside the cells. what they can tell me is that the tumour has had a partial response to chemo. as compared to a complete response, where it would be all dead, or no response, where activity levels would be the same or higher than they were before chemo.
without the mri and a biopsy it's hard to know any more than this. but it means that the tumour has in some way been affected, it might be 10% dead or it might be 60% dead, we don't know yet. they'll work that out when they cut it out, and they'll decide whether to push ahead with the same chemo regime or try different drugs. any response is better than no response, so good news.
and now for two less important but more funny things that have happened:
1) anthony this one is for you
after my PET, for which i had to fast, i seriously thought i was going to pass out from hungries and plummeting blood sugar levels, so i convinced father to stop over at subway on the way home. footlong chicken teriyaki, ranch sauce, old english cheese, the works. it was amazing and i ate the whole thing.
flash forward 8 hours and my tummy is not feeling great, me and steve are hanging out in my room trying to watch a movie while my stomach attempts to asphyxiate both of us with the most astounding farttastic sounds and smells. except the thing is, they actually didn't smell like farts. they smelled EXACTLY like subway. not just kind of dense and foody, they smelled like the very same sandwich i ate, and steve agreed, so it's true ok! they actually made me more hungry, which i think is how they get you, conniving old subway. and then i did a poo which looked like a footlong so you guys can come around with the frankincense and myrrh like whenever you get around to it.
2)
by some happy twist of events, i am now sharing my hospital room with grandma yetta. if you don't know what that means you should be pleased, because it means that between now and 1997 you have probably lived a full and interesting life where you did not watch reruns of the nanny. hell, you might not have watched it the first time around. i don't know, you're certainly not me. but for us foxtellers who still enjoy the ever-growing unpcness of the show based around the premise of "how funny it would be for a nice normal englishman to live with a jew?!?!?!", grandma yetta is a big deal. and she really is! obviously it's not the real yetta, but she's got a full length lycra leopard print gown, a smoker's cough and a chest full of mucus to back it up, and if she whacks on the transitions lenses i'm going to go mental. there's not really any story to this but it lifts my spirits.
so as you can tell, i'm fine, chilling in my little hospital bed, EXCRETING so i can go home. should be done late on sunday. reading harry potter, watching SVU, everything is a-ok.
