The Adventures of RATWoman

It’s amazing how much you crave or miss something when you know you can’t have it.  Tomorrow is my interim PET scan to determine the efficacy of my chemotherapy treatments on the lymphoma (cancer cells).  In preparation, I must remain on a carbohydrate/sugar deficient diet.  In layman’s terms, you can’t eat anything that tastes good.  This may be a slight exaggeration.  I can eat salads, green vegetables and protein products that aren’t marinated in sugar or mixed with anything carbohydrate.  So, pretty much I can have meat, fish, eggs, cheese, salad and broccoli but without any pasta, bread, milk, sweets, salad dressing (other than oil/vinegar), fruits, crackers/chips, beans, potatoes, rice or any vegetable other than green.  What’s even worse is that “no strenuous exercise” is permitted the day before the procedure.  I wonder what they consider “strenuous exercise”.  For a marathoner, certainly running 5 miles isn’t strenuous.  But, who am I kidding, running even 1 mile is strenuous for me at this time, so there is no fear of noncompliance on my part.

There is a lot riding on this PET scan, that I certainly wouldn’t take any chances at messing it up.    The fate of my treatment regimen relies on these results.  If the lymphoma tissue shows less metabolic activity (less tracer uptake) than my liver, then I am winning the battle and get the privilege of finishing 4 more months of the ABVD drugs that we’ve all come to know and love.  (We love them only because they are annihilating the evil cancer cells that lie below.)  If the results show the lymphoma is winning, then, we will gather the troops, strategize, and develop a new plan of attack, leaving no prisoners behind. 

Come tomorrow, I will henceforth be known as, RATwoman.  The RAT stands for RadioActive Tracer.  (Well, let’s see you try to come up with a better superhero name on the fly.   Harder than you think, isn’t it?)  Not only do I get to pretend that I’ll be transformed into a superhero with the radioactive contrast they inject, they greet me with a lovely grape-flavored, white, chalky liquid to drink for breakfast when I arrive. Regardless of the results, RATwoman will continue her pursuit of eliminating all crimes against normal cells and abolish the evil empire known as cancer.  We may need to develop new weapons or utilize our allies to generate more force, but in the end, good always surpasses evil, and the enemy will be defeated. (Chime in with a glorious John Williams score and we’ve got ourselves the making of a movie).  Stay tuned to determine the fate of the empire.  Results should be available by Tuesday.  May the force be with you.

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.  ~ Albert Einstein.