It’s interesting to see how people respond when I share the fact that I have cancer. Many offer prayers, some offer humor (my family and close friends), some share the impact of cancer on them and their families and others say nothing. One former colleague and friend David sent me an email that shared the impact of cancer on his family as well as one possible role for me.
David is very smart and gave me the lowdown on PET scans and his take on how I could be a “Super Hero” which I would like to share with you.
PET scans are very cool.
When the isotope decays it produces a positron which is antimatter. That's the same stuff that makes the warp drive on the Enterprise work. The positron tears along until it hits its normal matter twin, an electron. They totally annihilate into a pair of gamma rays. These are what the detector actually records to compute the image. So for a while after the scan you are glowing in the gamma ray portion of the spectrum. This can have consequences. Not long ago in New Hampshire a cop was parked on the side of the interstate playing with his new toy from Homeland Security which was a radiation detector. A car went by that lit up the device and he pulled the car over figuring that he had foiled a terrorist plot. Turns out the driver had just had a PET scan. So if you don't want to get water-boarded I wouldn't be driving around New York City for a while after a scan. The amount of radiation is enough that very conservative doctors recommend that you stay away from close contact with other people for 12 to18 hours (can't remember precisely) after a test. This would be the only situation I can think of where cancer actually is contagious.
For a while after a test you are a legitimate super hero. You should call yourself Cancerboy. Since you are glowing with ionizing radiation you could snuggle up nice and close with the bad guys and statistically increase their chances of getting cancer too. Perhaps you could form a posse with the other PET scan patients and by taking turns getting close to the bad guys you could really jack up their odds. Just a thought. A new career? Perhaps.....
A couple of days ago I had a MUGA scan. It also uses the radioactive isotopes to give the doctors a baseline of my heart so they can monitor the impact of chemotherapy on it. After the test I received a card from my MUGA scan technician to give to the police in the event that I set off radioactive equipment after my MUGA scan. It was addressed to Cancerboy........
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Cancer Boy! The Series. Produced by Mike Scully, Julie Thacker Scully and Brian Scully. Original Music by Eileen Drumm, Theme Song whistled by Ronnie Drumm. Cancer Boy's cape designed and created by Betsey Drumm. You'll be the only superhero on TV with a quilted cape. I think we have something here...
ReplyDeleteGreat- a super hero with glowing skin and a bad toupe. Now all you need is a creepy van.
ReplyDeleteA Little Nukie Never Hurt Anyone
ReplyDeleteAfter building nuclear subs and working in a nuclear power plant, I would like to share a few thoughts (I live for this crap). A great way to create steam energy is to let two large Neutrons bang into each other and the resulting heat is used to generate power. By-products of that mess are Alpha, Beta and Gamma energy waves. Paper can stop Alphas, skin can stop Betas, but Gammas, gammas are the high-speed, low-drag bad boys of nuclear fission. Neutrons are more evil but are inherently contained within the reaction. Gammas just fly. And gammas maintain a nagging post-reaction presence since they are continually emitted as part of the radioactive decay function. Gammas in an industrial setting are omni-directional and workers in these environments get whole-body exposure. Although there are quarterly and annual exposure limits, let’s just say when I had to inspect the reactor head, I approached my quarterly limit in less than 1-1/2 minutes. When radiation levels were that high we just called it “shine.” Quickest job I ever did.
In Rick’s case, there’s a bit of the good, the bad and the ugly here. Nuclear medicine has adopted the use of radioactive isotopes for diagnosis. Gamma are used to create an image of the isotope’s distribution (ask a nuke med tech how this really works). That’s good. But gammas have a great ability to penetrate through the body. That’s bad. Their intense short wavelength energy causes cell damage and can do a number on DNA. For all my exposure around reactors, that may explain a lot. The yellow coveralls we wore didn’t stop gammas, they just kept us from taking any contaminated dust with us when we left. No Radiation Boy capes, just yellow coveralls. As far as I know, I never glowed coming home from work. For cancer treatment, Gamma knife surgery concentrates beams of gamma rays and focuses this directional radiation while minimizing collateral damage to surrounding tissue. Maybe a little ugly, but good for Rick.
There seems to be a fine line between what the body can normally tolerate and just too much radiation. Rick should be getting just what he needs. I like to think the annual dose accumulations I received through the ‘80s and ‘90s were akin to medical preventative maintenance. Shine on, Rick. We should meet after treatment at the High Rad Café and purge any remaining radioisotopes with some single malt therapy. Cancer Boy cape is optional.
I would think that the name Metro Gnome would be more your style. But maybe it's just me!
ReplyDeletePete
Fluorescent green....maybe an improvement over pasty? I always knew you were a super something, but hero did not come to mind. Just kidding. My favorite thing is that you're keeping that snide sense of humor. Hang on to it, it'll get you through.
ReplyDeleteHey Rick,
ReplyDeleteNext time you post, is there a way to automatically notify the blog followers? I have a friend whose blog I follow and I think I get an automatic notification whenever he adds a new post. Then people know the there's something new to check out and comment on.
Hi Rick,
ReplyDeleteNo jokes. No sarcasm. Just hope everything went okay yesterday and want you to know we're rooting for you. The jokes and sarcasm will resume tomorrow.
Mike
Hay Rick..with the blog now what are u going to do for the x-mass card?I hope all is well...thinking of u and your family daily..Linda
ReplyDeleteHey....what's the big deal...I just had a Hernia Operation....you don't see me starting up a blog.
ReplyDelete