Okay...now I'm really scared.

I got my results of the scans on Friday. In Dr. Johnson's carefully chosen words "it appears to me the diseases isn't any worse..." good right? yes, very good. Except a huge surprise; a few spots of "uptake" in your brain. WHAT??

Did not even think or imagine something like that. Uptake is used in PET lingo to mean that that are of the body is having a lot of metabolic activity. Which is how cancer shows up on the PET scan. It's excellent if you have another test like an MRI or a CT to match it against to see if indeed an "uptake" spot is a tumor. The PET can tell you if the tumor is alive or dead. So yes, it's possible to have "uptake" and not cancer in that spot.

In the words of Prince Ahmed the head of nuclear medicine; it "could be metastatic cancer or normal metabolic activity in the brain." Dr. Johnson called that "vague". But man talk about making your heart drop out of your chest... brain tumors? I can't imagine anything more frightening at this point.

Next came the questions; have you had headaches... yes geez. But I also needed new lenses in my glasses and I went through Valentine's Day and wow.. that's always a headache. However I haven't had a headache since I got the new lenses and so gee... not in at least a month or more. I've been headache free.

Have you lost you balance? hmmmm.. not really. I can tip toe through my house where the floor is full of lego and k'nex pieces easily and with grace. Haven't fallen down. That's a big no.

Any coordination problems? No. I still have that single Mom ability to do about 8 things at once.

All big NO's.

So you think I'd be more relaxed about it all. But damn; this is really a scary thing for me.

Dr. Johnson ordered an MRI of my head asap. I go in on Monday morning at 7am. I'm slightly claustrophobic and so MRI's are not comfortable for me anyway. So he gave me some valium to take. Which is a good thing because otherwise it would have been a weekend of high anxiety for me. The valium has at least allowed me to sleep.

It's difficult to be alone with a child to take care of with something like this going on. Can't talk to a 6 year old about it; so it stews in your mind. I googled it once; but what I read was so awful I stopped. I know sometimes you find information online that is really old or you find what some patient wrote in a blog that was in a really bad mood and it is like a knife cutting through your optimism.

If they do find something; which in a cute attempt at humor Dr. Johnson assured me that "they will find something"... you know a brain...hehehe. Sweet isn't he?? lol. Then the approach would be radiation to wipe out the cancer spots and then back on my usual routine therapy. Maybe follow up with some chemo. All depends on what/if they find.

He did say that he thought it was a very, very small chance that there would be anything. The cancer would have had to make it up there during my time off herceptin; not likely. And I haven't got the other symptoms, blood tests, tumor markers all normal. He tried to be reassuring. But I think anyone would be freaked-out with even the idea of it.

I can't imagine that if there were live cancer cells floating around at that time that they didn't take up in an easier location; aren't cancer cells opportunistic SOB's? why would they go for the hard route up to my brain?

Dammit.... I keep remembering every headache, every mistake I've made here and there... but then I remind myself that I feel good. Maybe 2 months ago during the painful Valentine's Day this would be more believable but not now. And so it goes; I freak out, reassure myself and try to block it out of my mind.... in more ways than one.

And worse case if I need radiation I figure I can lose 50 IQ points and still be smarter than any boss I have ever had... and come to think of it, most of my employees... and gee; probably 100 points and I'd still be smarter than most of the men I've dated. Sorry guys... you know who you are... lol.