Roll up for the medical mystery tour

Dare I say that they’ve found out what’s wrong with me? Okay I’ll do it…..guess what’s wrong with me? Nothing! That’s right….NOTHING!

The respiratory specialist I’ve been seeing who keeps finding new things on new scans was worried when they detected another nodule further up in my right lung, just under my heart. He decided to send me for a PET scan and Thursday last week was the day!

Stueykins and I had an early start, neither of us slept well the night before, we had that age old problem where you know you’ve got to get up earlier than normal and you are worried about sleeping past the alarm so you just don’t fall asleep until the last minute – only to have to get up!

It meant that we had to travel to Brisbane and then get another train a couple of stops out west to go to one of three hospitals that have a PET scanner. Just in case you ever come across this situation, there ARE three in Brisbane but each will tell you they are the only ones with one! It was my investigative nose that located three!

Anyway, I went to Southern X-ray at the Wesley Hospital in Auchenflower. Nice facilities so I suppose it wasn’t a wasted trip but with Queensland rail constantly changing their route times, we managed to get to Brisbane far too early, and arrived at the hospital with an hour to kill. I decided to let them know I was there at least, and no sooner had I done that, they called me through – that’s got to be a first! Arrive early, get in early!

Once in there, I was to be injected with a radioactive glucose tracer – fun! Like I haven’t had enough radiation lately with how many CT scans etc? I wasn’t allowed to move, I had to lay there for over an hour without moving and to make things harder for me, it was on my back. My back doesn’t like that and quite often it can also lead to a coughing fit. No matter, I figured that if I just relaxed and dozed, it would be easy. In theory, having little to no sleep the night before, and being wrapped in a blanket in a cool place with the lights turned off, you’d think I’d have gone to sleep without a hitch – hah! Yeah in an ideal world! It would seem that the room I was in was like Grand Central Station, outside the room is where everyone wanted to stop and chat and clunk and make all kinds of noises. After a while though I managed to drift off.

I was a good girl and “made like a statue”, I hadn’t budged at all, I was still pinching the cotton ball from where she took a blood glucose test from my finger.

Next I was woken up and taken to the scanner for half an hour of scanning. You’ve got to love some people though, I asked the girl doing the scan “so, how does this actually work?” I was hoping for the adults version of how this scan worked etc but when she started with “well, you’re radioactive at the moment!” my eyes glazed over! Does this mean if I get stroppy I will turn into the Incredible Hulk?

Before I knew it, I was out and we were back at Roma St Station in Brisbane awaiting our train ride home! I asked if they could send a copy of the results to my GP so I could see him, rather than panic for nothing for 3 weeks until my specialist returned from his vacation. No problem, I was told he’d have them the next day. I phoned and got an appointment with him.

The next day my sister took me, another sleepless night but though I was mentally prepared for bad news, I hoped for the best news. And we got it! There is no cancer, there is nothing really “wrong” that’s causing all these symptoms. What it looks like has happened is at some point in recent times I’ve had a bad lung infection of some sort and this is most likely scarring left from it (the nodules) but they will still probably keep an eye on them and do a couple more scans in the next 3 or 6 months to make sure nothing has changed.

Relief? That’s an understatement….I floated through the rest of the day in bliss!!!

So this infection that I’ve had that I didn’t know about at the time I was having it (depending on when it was) might be what has caused the breathing issues and the coughing etc. The pains in my chest though I found out are all muscle strain around the area, the worst pain I feel is probably from me pulling a muscle fairly regularly! I can live with that!

I will still see my specialist, I might need to have some pulmonary rehabilitation to help me get back to 100% but it’s great because now, every possible part of my body has been tested and I’ve come out with a liver disease and a past lung infection (that I never noticed – unless it’s from 4 years ago).

Great news isn’t it! THE BEST NEWS EVER!!!! Hopefully that puts me back on track to my health getting better! :)

Tags: Brisbane, Health Issues, scans