My Body as a PET scan, MRI scan, CT scan ...

Going back in time, to things I haven't had a chance to cover yet ...

In Buddhism, as part of our meditation on emptiness, we do a search for our body. When we search with wisdom, our body disappears - but most of the time we search with ignorance. We think we've found our actual body, but we're only finding parts of our body.
It struck me when I was getting all these tests that these machines doing conventional searches for my body could only find parts of my body. For example, a PET scan can only detect metabolic activity.

Let's see if I can remember which scan was which ...

MRI Scan

An MRI is painless but noisy, even with earplugs in. 

But the noises! They're individualized for each person and each test. 

Imagine a minute or two for each mix of strange sounds. For me, there was a bit with someone knocking on a wood board, then a call-and-response bit, then an excerpt from a neighbor with a powerdrill.

If you've heard of anything by Philip Glass, put a bit of that in.

Here's a link to a picture of an MRI machine, complete with sounds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oI9YnhPNcQ

Because it's so noisy, to say something to the tech (who's in another room), they give you a "bulb" with a cord if you need to alert them - the bulb is like the soft, plastic thing that a nurse pumps to check your blood pressure.
Here's a bit more about them: "Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) uses a magnetic field and radio waves - the machine scans the body by turning small magnets on and off. MRI machines look like a big doughnut that has a large magnet inside a circular structure. You lie down face-up in your gown on a table that slides into the opening of the magnet."

MRI of my brain

Tumor is dark round spot at left (my right - you're looking at me from my feet)

PET Scan

Thankfully there's nothing to drink - but they inject you with a glucose "tracer" solution with an enormous metal syringe - which they bring in a metal toolbox(!); it goes into an IV line, not directly into your body. Then they rush you to the machine, because the radiative solution starts to decay as soon as it's injected.

When you're done, they give you a letter so that you can cross the border with radioactivity in your body.

A PET scan is very expensive, so your health insurance needs to OK it beforehand. (Must be that color costs extra - ha ha.)

In other ways, it's like getting a CT scan or an MRI - you wear a gown, take off your jewelry, lie face-up on a table before you're put into the device ...

PET scan of my brain

CT Scan
I've had a bunch of these ...
A CT scan "combines a series of X-ray views taken from many different angles to produce cross-sectional images of the bones and soft tissues inside your body. The resulting images can be compared to a loaf of sliced bread." according to the WebMD website, http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/computed-tomography-ct-scan-of-the-body?page=2.

For an abdominal CT, I couldn't eat beforehand.

They injected my port with contrast material.
You have to be still, but the tech talks to you between shots (there's a speaker in the "donut" where you can hear them, and they can hear you).

That open spot on the left is where my tumor was before surgery

Ultrasound
I was originally diagnosed last year using ultrasound plus the tumor-marker bloodtest, a CA-125.
You may have seen ultrasounds of a fetus developing - it's like static-ky black & white TV, and you don't know what you're looking at if the tech won't tell you - which they don't usually do, but thankfully did in my case. ("See that spot - it's not supposed to be there.")

My pelvic ultrasound - who knows what it shows (do I see a cat resting? no, that can't be right ...)

Here's a webpage with good info about ultrasounds: http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=genus
I liked this part of the explanation:
"Ultrasound imaging is based on the same principles involved in the sonar used by bats, ships and fishermen. When a sound wave strikes an object, it bounces back, or echoes. By measuring these echo waves it is possible to determine how far away the object is and its size, shape, and consistency (whether the object is solid, filled with fluid, or both).

In medicine, ultrasound is used to detect changes in appearance of organs, tissues, and vessels or detect abnormal masses, such as tumors."

Interesting!
I got CDs that have images from all my scans. What's really fun is to look at each loaf of bread, slice by slice, which the software that comes on  each CD lets you do - click the mouse to move from one slice to the next. These pictures are just the beginning of the fun you can have when you're a sick person - I mean, a patient.