My new running shoes....and breakfast

Here are my new running shoes:

Aren't they just beautiful??? Went for a run this morning (through Jesmond Dene) to christen them - unfortunately I was pretty slow, but I'll get there. I'm hoping to keep running through chemo, because the stronger you are the better you cope - and also I really don't want to get fat. That would just be the last straw.... I know most people think that chemo makes you lose weight, but apparently it can go both ways. So mother is under strict instructions to feed me delicious healthy food (which is what she does anyway, but this gives her licence to snatch chocolate from my greedy grasping little fingers. OH wait she does that too....OK mother is going to carry on as normal which suits us all just fine.)

For more info on running and chemo, have a look at the link "Running from Dr Hodgkin's Disease": it's inspired me to try and keep running like Jenny Goellnitz did, as opposed to lying in bed eating Mini Eggs for 3 months.... that might still happen though, so I'm not making any promises.

Today I have my FDG-PET-CT scan. I know - I hadn't heard of one either. Back to Wiki:

Positron emission tomography (PET) is a nuclear medicine imaging technique which produces a three-dimensional image or picture of functional processes in the body. The system detects pairs of gamma rays emitted indirectly by a positron-emitting radionuclide (tracer), which is introduced into the body on a biologically active molecule. Images of tracer concentration in 3-dimensional space within the body are then reconstructed by computer analysis. In modern scanners, this reconstruction is often accomplished with the aid of a CT X-ray scan performed on the patient during the same session, in the same machine.

If the biologically active molecule chosen for PET is FDG, an analogue of glucose, the concentrations of tracer imaged then give tissue metabolic activity, in terms of regional glucose uptake. Although use of this tracer results in the most common type of PET scan, other tracer molecules are used in PET to image the tissue concentration of many other types of molecules of interest.

Basically they'll inject me with some radioactive sugar (fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose) and then the greedy little cancer cells will gobble it up for metabolism. Obviously the rest of my body will too, especially my brain and liver due to their high glucose uptake. The radioactive bit can't be excreted by the cells, so it remains in them until it decays and thus they show up on the scan. Not sure where the CT bit fits in - I think it makes it easier to reconstruct the images. Any radiologists out there who can give a better explanation please feel free to do so!

I'm going to be a bit radioactive after this and have to avoid kids under 16 (FINALLY! an excuse not to talk to Isobel....only joking :P) and pregnant ladies for 8 hours. My flatmate Jenny finds this hilarious and reckons I should use it to out any hidden pregnancies amongst my friends! I think they're all quite well-behaved people though.

Where was I? Oh yes - I'm not allowed to eat for 6 hours before the PET scan (i.e. from 11am today). This is very irritating because - as many people have observed - I spend the vast majority of my time thinking about food and when I can next eat it. So after my run I went into Tesco and got some mushrooms and other ingredients, and made this:


Gluten-free sausages, fried sweet potato with caramelised onions, baked beans (organic dahhhling), mushrooms fried in butter and garlic....and obviously tomato ketchup. Aren't you jealous? Halfway through eating it all I was most annoyed to discover I had forgotten the eggs, so I bounced up and scrambled some (with a twist of black pepper and some parmesan). My GOD it was good.

I think I can cope with 6 hours of not eating now.