My MUGA Scan

February 16, 2009

Can they do any more test on me???

Why, of course they can! I went to Suburban Hospital today for a MUGA Scan. "The MUGA scan (MUltiple Gated Acquisition scan) is an extremely useful noninvasive tool for assessing the function of the heart. The MUGA scan produces a moving image of the beating heart, and from this image several important features can be determined about the health of the cardiac ventricles (the heart’s major pumping chambers). " (that is from About.com) Dr. K (my Chemo Dr.) has to check my heart muscle's strength since the AC drug in my chemo treatment and can weaken the muscle.

They say that it doesn't hurt... And I guess the "scan" doesn't hurt, but getting stuck with needles twice (or three times in my situation) DOES! You think that after all the testing and contrast I have had, that I would be okay with needles. Nope! Not yet!

I was called in and met with the gentleman that was going to take my blood. "I hope your veins are better than everyone else I have seen today."
"What?" I asked, snatching back my arm.
"Oh, today every patient has had me earning my money."
Okay, I might have been joking with him that he only get one shot. What I was thinking was, "Well if it was EVERY PATIENT, then maybe it wasn't the patients who have had a problem!!"

Low and behold, he stuck me in my arm to get my blood, nope, no blood. He proceeded to take my blood from my hand. Then he left to mix it with a "trace amount" of radioactive isotopes with my blood and let it mix or "cook" as he put it, for 30 minutes and then proceeded to inject it back into my blood stream. This time he chose a vein in my wrist (very close to the outer bone). I was doing okay until the last few minutes of the injection and it was burning!!

Then I followed him into a lab with what looked like a CT or MRI machine. I got on the table and was pushed only went half way in, and on the outside of the machine was these two large pads that rotated around me for a little bit. That was it!

The scan was no problem, I haven't heard the results yet, but I suspect they will be fine and I will start my first chemo treatment next Thursday (Feb. 26th).