The PET Scan..

I had my PET scan done yesterday. It went really well.
I guess after four scans I must be getting used to it, as I was very relaxed right through-out. I now hold the record for having recieved the most number of PET scans in NZ.

Basically a PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scan is very similar to a CT scan. It just takes a little longer. An hour before the scan I am injected with a radioactive sugar isotope. Then I'm left on a bed for an hour to lay perfectly still and relax.
Cancer cells are very sugar hungry, so they soak up the isotope. This makes it very easy to identify them on a scan. The reason for laying perfectly still is so that your muscles don't soak up too much of the sugar and give false positives or cloud the results.
This time round I was also given a barium solution to drink as well. This helps highlight your intestines and bowel.

The scan itself takes about 30 minutes. It's a lot quicker these days than when I had one of the first PET scans done in NZ back in 2006, which was over an hour. It's just a case of laying on a table and being fed into a huge donut shaped scanner. It takes thousands of pictures in slices that are then assembled in such a way that the Doctors can virtually fly through the images of my body and look for any hot-spots.

I also got one piece of good news yesterday. My insurance company has agreed to pay for the scan. I wasn't sure if they would and the amount of paper work they want is a little daunting. However I figured it was worth the effort and I quickly rushed around last week putting a claim together. They phoned yesterday morning and said it was approved. The good thing is that now I'm on record with them and any future claims will be a lot simpler.

Next post will be mid next week when I get the PET scan results.. Fingers crossed for a clean bill of health!.

First race since returning home.

I've just got home from a full day's worth of motorsport and I'm worn out!.
I had a few concerns about whether I would be fit enough to man-handle my 550 horse power Mitsubishi Evolution around the streets of Seaview in my first outing in over six months. I needn't have worried.

The very first run in the car, a warm-up run, was fast enough to win the event out-right. I then did another faster run later in the day that consolidated the win. So all my fears about loosing my edge and not being up to the level of competition I'd previously been at before treatment have been laid to rest.

I only had one "moment" during the day. I had decided to not do my 4th and final run of the day as it was raining and it would be impossible to go faster in the wet than my earlier runs in the dry.
But then I bumped into my friend Alf and his son Daniel, and Daniel asked if I would take him with me on my final run of the day.
So we strapped him into the passengers seat and proceeded to do what I had promised to be a fairly sedate run around the tight street circuit on a very wet road. Amazingly the car had heaps more grip than I expected so I drove faster and faster as I found the limits of adhesion. Then as we completed the last tricky turn on what was now becoming a blindingly fast run, the engine threw off it's power-steering belt.
This left me mid corner with incredibly heavy steering and me facing a concrete kerb.

There is no way I could return the steering to where it needed to be in time to avoid colliding with the kerb, so I took my foot off the brake as we went up it, and re-applied it once we were on the footpath. There we were, parked perfectly on the footpath directly in front of a crowd of spectators. None of whom would have had any idea why I suddenly decided mid race to leave the road and park my car in such a bizarre place for no apparent reason. No damage was done, we drove very slowly back to the pits, fitted a replacement belt, packed up and went back the clubrooms to pick up my trophies.

A great day! (If you want to get an idea of what it is like to do a run of the Port Rd Street Sprint in my car. Check out this footage from a previous year.) >>Click here<<

PS: Still no night sweats now for three nights in a row.

and then it suddenly stops...

Thursday was a terrible day, everything pointed to a relapse. There's almost nothing else that fits in with drenching night sweats, fever and my inability to gain weight other than Hodgkin's, menopause or Tuberculosis. (I think we can rule out the last two).

Then Thursday night came and I had no sweating, same again on Friday night. I really, really hope this continues! My PET scan is booked for Friday 31st October (next week) so I will know for sure either way in about two weeks time.

The doctors in Germany are putting together a plan in case of relapse and will advise me early next week. It would be great to be able to tell them it was a false alarm. They have advised me that my stem cells are in perfect condition and awaiting my direction as what to do with them. I shall wait for the PET result before deciding on whether to bring them back to NZ.

Meanwhile I have my first motorsport event tomorrow. It's a street sprint at Port rd, Seaview. I took my race car out for a drive yesterday to see how it felt. It's been six months since I last drove it. I floored it just once as I overtook a slow moving van going up Haywards hill. I kept it in third gear rather than down changing to second even though I was only going 40kph, regardless of this the acceleration still slammed me into my seat and I was almost on the vans bumper before I had turned the wheel enough to steer around it. In just two or three seconds seconds I'd well and truly broken the speed limit and had to brake hard to pull it back down to 100kph before I attracted unwanted attention.
The adrenaline made my hands shake and my heart pound for about 5 minutes after. I'm not sure how I'm going to do at the actual race. With my system so fragile at the moment and adrenaline being such a powerful toxin, I will have to be careful.
I'll let you know how I go. I must say though.. it's a lot more exciting than a stroll in the Bavarian country side!

Night sweats and fever consistant with relaspe.

It's been a bit of a stressful week. I've had a few night sweats again. This seems to be preceeded by a high temperature before going to bed. One night it was as high as 38.5, another 37.8. Almost everything I have read on the subject all comes back as Hodgkin's Lymphoma as being the most likely cause of both unexplained fever and consistent night sweats. Bugger!

I've been in touch with Pacific radiation as to why they had not yet confirmed a date for my PET scan. Apparently they were waiting for more info. Just exactly when they were planning to ask for it I have no idea. I dropped in a copy of the treatment details from Germany to them today and have been told it is likely I will have my scan next week.

Both Sarah and I are pretty upset about what looks to be another treatment failure. It's still early yet, and there is a minute chance it's not a relapse, the scan will confirm.
Either that or if I suddenly have no more night sweats, I'll know either way. I went to the Doctors today and saw a relieving GP, he agreed it did seem to point to Hodgkin's. We decided to try a course of antibiotics (Augmentin)to see if that helped my dry cough and fever.

I've also emailed the Klinik and asked for Dr Kopic's opinion.

Kind of an update.

Having been back now for just over 2 1/2 weeks, I've come to the conclusion that I will be forever cursed with paranoia. Every little twinge of my back, every symptom makes me worry that the disease has returned. That really annoying dry cough that I had right up until I arrived in Germany has returned. It actually started two days before I left. It may be asthma, it may be a chest cold. I seem to have been afflicted by it almost the whole time I've had Hodgkin's. However I have also had dry coughs that go on for months before in my life, long before Hodgkin's came along, so it may not be related. It may have something to do with my crappy immune system.

I made a discovery the other night. I took a sudafed before going to bed, to see if it helped with my cough. I get a runny nose and it runs down the back of my throat and causes me to cough. It's like when you inhale water or food. Anyway I completely soaked the bed in sweat during the night. I woke up feeling like my whole world had just crashed around me. When ever the disease has been active I suffer from night sweats.
In the morning I did some research and found that a leading cause of night sweats can also be paracetamol! I checked the active ingredients of Sudafed and sure enough it contains 500mg of it. Phew!! It also explains why I was having so many sweats in conjunction with the back aches in the weeks before I left. It may be that the pulsing back ache is my only true B-symptom as I was taking paracetamol for it.

Since then I've avoided paracetamol and have yet to have another night sweat. However I've still been waking up quite clammy during the night. Again this could have several causes. A chest infection (that dry cough) is one likely culprit. I've had no word yet on when I can expect my PET scan to take place. I had asked for early November. I'll feel a lot happier once it's done and the results come back, hopefully negative (clear).

..Ron