I didn’t have time to think about the PET scan because I had to go pick up my two older boys from the airport. They are 18 and 20, had just finished their first and third year of university respectively, and were coming to stay in sunny Los Angeles with me, to be fed and have their laundry done for them. It was also a Friday, which meant hitting the kosher shops before they closed early (and gearing myself up for going – the shop closest to my place is known as a “get your elbows out” kind of affair).
So, I lay there as the machine did its thing, and then I was off and running. Anyway, I didn’t want to think about the PET scan, about what the results would show, even though I had felt a need to go for it.
For months, I had been barely able to move my neck. My life was a series of click-click-click click-click-click click-click-click moments. I spend a lot of time hunched over my computer, so I initially attributed my discomfort to bad posture. I went for massages – Swedish, deep tissue, hot stone – but nothing helped. And the masseuses couldn’t stop going on about the state of my neck. Like a rock, they said. Impossible! They worked on it until I was in tears – and for nothing. I could still barely move. I tried muscle relaxants and Voltarol gel and heating pads. I tried exercises I found online.
Although I assumed my posture was to blame, I couldn’t get out of my mind that the woman who had hired me for my LA position, a wonderful human, esteemed scholar, and renowned rabbi (the first woman rabbi to ordain rabbis and cantors in the Reform movement), may her memory be a blessing, had discovered her cancer had metastasised after complaining of back pain.
On top of that, on one of the cancer Facebook groups that I really shouldn’t be on – the people who post on them are rarely years out of treatment and living carefree, and most are looking for advice after getting devastating prognoses – there was a lively discussion about spinal compression being a big red flag of metastasis. So, PET scan it was.
But after years of living in the UK, I had become accustomed to waiting for results… and waiting… and waiting. So, as I whipped up schnitzel with pretzel breadcrumbs (an LA thing!) and warmed my pretzel challah (ditto!), and listened to stories about uni life, I relaxed. And then – only hours after my scan – ping!
I’ll never forget how long it took me to get the results from the NHS of my initial biopsy in March 2023.
I called the hospital repeatedly and was repeatedly rebuffed. I was told a consultant would have to meet me to give me the results, and no consultant was available. March turned to April. April turned to May.
Finally, I got an appointment date: the end of June.
I was not having it. I railed at the poor secretaries and breast nurses and demanded to be seen. Or could they not just tell me what was going on? I said I was taking students to Italy in June and going to a conference in Canada in July and I needed to know if I could keep my plans. Could they just tell me that? A breast nurse, at last taking pity on me, said: “I wouldn’t make plans if I were you.” And that’s how I found out I had breast cancer.
So, imagine my utter shock when a notification showed up on my phone hours after my PET scan. How had a radiologist already even read the results? (Two had, it turned out). I assumed the message would be inviting me to an appointment – what else could it be? But no. There it was, the results dropped onto my screen without fanfare:
“No FDG PET/CT evidence of local recurrence or metastatic disease.”
Oh, the relief! I would have no sleepless nights ahead of me, no spiralling, maybe even a sense of calm!
And then I wondered: had the results been otherwise, would they also have just landed on my phone that way?
Without so much as a phone call, a warning, a tiny bit of preparation? Would that be better than waiting for months to find out?
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