Go back a few months, and I'm looking for results of a CT/CAT Scan done at St. Mary's Hospital, looking for a reason for nausea and pain in my gut, which I'd been trying to get sorted out since May '09.
"Well," said the good doctor in his rolling Scottish brogue and with a whiff of tobacco smoke on his breath, "You have a bit of emphysema but that will show up in anyone who's smoked for a long time. And," he continued, peering over the top of his glasses at the computer screen, "There's a wee spot on your lung. Likely scar tissue from pneumonia or bronchitis, or maybe TB."
"But, I've never had any of those..."
"Lots of people have them and don't realize it, or you could have been exposed to TB and never got sick. If you're concerned about it, I can set up an appointment with a specialist." This doctor had already assured me, several times in the previous months, that I did not have cancer.
Whatever. I left with a morphine prescription refill and a new one for yet another medication for IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), which the good doctor was convinced was my problem in spite of my protests that I didn't have any IBS symptoms. I was pretty much bed-ridden these days and hadn't worked since June.
Long story short, I dropped Cairns to sign up with Dr. Ingrey, the new kid on the block who seemed to have a brain and didn't seem to have a drinking problem. Ingrey was concerned about the wee spot on my lung, and he got me in to see a thoracic surgeon in Vancouver in less than a month. This in itself is a bit of a medical miracle; in British Columbia, it's normally at least three months until one gets to see a specialist.
Dr. Ken Evans gently explained that my wee spot could be cancer, and got me a PET Scan (positron emission tomography) tout suite at the BC Cancer Agency. I didn't get the feeling, as one often does in a doctor's office, that I was wasting his valuable time. He understood that a visit to his Vancouver office was an all-day trip for me, so he volunteered to fax results to Dr. Ingrey, home on the Sunshine Coast. Yes, I think he's a sweetie.
A PET Scan shows wee spots, tumors and suspicious areas as "hot spots" or "cold spots." Hot spots are cancer, cold spots are a sigh of relief, all revealed without a biopsy or other invasive testing. Big needle through my chest to rip out a piece of my lung, or a relaxing lie-down on a cushioned table and the soft hum of high technology? No contest. I want the PET scan, and I don't care if I glow in the dark for a month!
PET Scans involve an injection of radioactive dye, then imaging in a machine not unlike the CAT Scan. I think of it like a high-performance CAT scan, one on steroids. The worst part of the procedure was having to lie perfectly still for the duration of the scan, about an hour in my case (it's often longer). As soon as you're positioned and begin entering the scan tunnel, of course, your nose itches. You cannot scratch your nose. You must lie perfectly still.
My good friend Jane drove me to Dr. Ingrey's Sechelt office on January 12 for the results. They weren't so good. Hot spots indicated cancer in my left lung (three tumors), lymph nodes at my left collarbone and right abdomen, in my spleen and in my bone marrow. Cancer.
I felt sorry for Dr. Ingrey. He was careful in delivering the information, and I could tell he knew it was tough to take. I succeeded in not breaking down. I told him I was in a state of controlled panic and needed a prescription for a strong sedative so I wouldn't fall apart completely. He wrote one for Ativan (lorazepam), a fast-acting little sublingual pill in the benzodiazepam (Valium) family.
Jane got the news first, then my prescription, Master Card and an order for a carton of Export A Ultra Smooth. No, this wasn't reckless. With possibly only a few weeks to live, what was the point of quitting?
Reckless was asking my friend to fraudulently use my credit card and forge my signature. I didn't think that one through. I would have been stuck in Sechelt, a half-hour's drive from home, with no drugs and no cigarettes, while she was taken to jail. No, this was not at all a good situation.
But, the day was not to be all bad: Jane got away with her crime of credit card fraud and so I got to have Ativan and cigarettes, and a ride back to Pender Harbour.
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