Editor's Pick: Seattle-based blogger Jill Cohen keeps a notable blog on life with metastatic breast cancer. While it at times focuses on the warm and domestic (ovens and appliances, recipes for challah, hollandaise sauce), Dancing With Cancer: Living With Mets, The "New Normal," covers an astonishing range of topics. Recently, in a single month, Jill took on matters of life and death with a calm, journalistic demeanor. The details, the facts, the experience offered by Jill represent a resource on breast cancer like few others we have encountered. We are pleased to highlight Dancing with Cancer in a new HealthCentral feature, the Best of the Health Blogosphere.
Lymphedema Under Control - February 4, 2008
My second lymphedema flare-up in two months is back under control through bandaging. Although I hate wrapping (it feels like my entire arm is encased in a huge, tight oven mitt), it really works. Bandaging for a couple of days, self-massage, and drinking some homemade oxymel seemed to do the trick.
An on-line friend who also has lymphedema told me about oxymel. It's a medieval recipe for "what ails you." Combine 4 ounces of honey with hot water and vinegar in equal parts. Add 1 ounce fresh rosemary. Steep in a coffee maker for several hours. Drink daily diluted with water or seltzer.
PET/CT Scan Tomorrow - February 4, 2008
On Tuesday I have my annual PET/CT scan. Since my bony metastases have been mostly stable for more than five years, my oncologist usually orders bone scans. But once a year he orders the (more expensive) PET/CT scan. Thankfully our health insurance covers the costs of both kinds of tests. I usually have a bone scan once every 3-4 months.
The two tests give different information. According to www.webmd.com, a bone scan "is a nuclear scanning test that identifies new areas of bone growth or breakdown". As I understand it, bone scans don't differentiate between healing fractures and metastases. The PET/CT scan gives information about how rapidly cells "take up" glucose. Since cancer cells grow quickly, they will have a faster uptake.
Either way my body gets a lot of radioactive material during the course of a year. But I don't think I glow in the dark....
Scan Update - February 6, 2008
Yesterday I had my (annual) PET/CT scan. I had to fast from midnight the night before. I checked in and was immediately given valium to insure that I didn't move while the glucose was spreading throughout my body. There's nothing like valium on a completely empty stomach! I was woozy within moments.
Then the tech tried to insert an IV. Twice. She tried to use the veins in my elbow and in my hand. Unfortunately, neither one took. And of course, since I was fasting AND had taken valium, my vasovagal reflex kicked in and I felt very faint. Thankfully a nurse was able to access my port. I developed a huge bruise on my hand which topically applied arnica cream has reduced nicely.
I drank a lovely barium concoction, was injected with the radioactive dye, rested quietly in my valium haze for 40 minutes, and drank another large container of barium. Then they brought me to the scan machine. It's shaped in a ring form. I laid down on the sliding gurney, put my arms overhead and clasped my fingers together, and slid through the doughnut hole. The actual scan seemed to take about half an hour, and the whole process was 3 hours from start to finish.
