Peter Lalor

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May 21, 2005

A very big week

On Monday it was time to try again to get a PET scan approved. To my surprise, I still felt that Dr. Laherty was the man to talk to. Jennifer and I discussed it and she elegantly explained the reasoning she would give for wanting a PET scan. She then suggested that we call him together, but I found myself reluctant. When we got to the phone I told her that, and she asked what to do. I tried to go inside and be honest with myself about my reasoning for having her make the call. Did I really feel that she was the person for the job? I felt that I did, so she called him while I went to warm up in the bath, as I have been erratically cold since having ten percent of my blood removed two weeks ago. After I had been in the bath a short while I heard an excited whoop from Jennifer and knew that she had just hung up from a successful call. Jennifer had called and told him that she understood their positiion on PET scans as they were inapplicable to the clinical trial, but that as we had been doing a lot to support my immune system, some doctors had suggested that a PET scan would show more thoroughly if fluid instead of tumour were present, and given that we were keen to get a PET scan before we persued other treatments. He thought that was fair and reasonable, but reiterated that he couldn’t do anything due to the guidelines for the trial. She persisted, asking that if an individual wanted one, was it possible as we were willing to pay? Yes, with a referral from a doctor. Jennifer asked if he would complete referral forms. Yes, of course, and he then told her where in Brisbane PET scans were done. She told him that she would get the forms and get them to him, and he agreed to fill them out and return them to the hospital. He commented that he would actually be very interested to see those pictures. In the call, Dr. Laherty had also given the status of the dendritic cell vaccine trial: Mine was undergoing the usual tests to ensure that there was no problem, and that it would be ready in two days (on Wednesday).

Success! We would go to Brisbane in two days, and I would be PET and MRI scanned and get the first injection of the dendritic cell vaccine trial.

Jennifer was later preparing for the trip to Brisbane and was looking at the Wesley Hospital’s web site and found a page giving the hospital’s values:

The Whole Person
We believe that each person is an inseparable unity of body, mind and spirit. We therefore seek to respect and respond to the physical, psychological, social and spiritual dimensions of our patients and co-workers.

Given my exploration of Robert Monroe’s experiences out of the body I’m not so sure about the first sentence, as I feel that we are certainly capable of learning how to journey out of our bodies. But given that my experience thus far is crossing all the dimensions stated in the second sentence I can only agree. We liked the Wesley already.

I answered a telephone call from the radiation scheduling department from a woman calling in response to Jennifer’s message on Friday about pushing the start of my radiation back a week due to the dendritic cell vaccine trial being ready to start on the same day. They had apparently already received approval from the radiation doctor, so we delayed one week. She asked what time was good for me and I told her anytime. She was very apologetic that it would be mid-afternooon. No problem. She said that possibly it could be a bit earlier, but I was unrelentingly easygoing about it. Any time is fine. She was extremely grateful—and apparently surprised that someone was this flexible. She thanked me for being so easy, saying that she wished everyone was, “And believe me, they’re not�. Hey, it’s all good to me. It’s all in a flow.

That afternoon Jennifer and I, along with Tara, went to Ariadne’s open gathering for two hours at Gerry’s house. We saw Gerry right as we arrived and he commented on my new beard (due to my inability to shave due to cold sores immediately after my 10% blood removal). As he had only recently shaved his own full beard I joked that it was because clean-shave was now taken. Then Jennifer, Tara and I joined a small group of people gathered around a fire in Gerry’s back yard with Ariadne. The gathering was about dreaming and interpreting dreams, which was done by people revealing dreams relevant to topics. As I have been unable to recall dreams for many months now, I had no recent dreams on which to participate. At any rate, I was more interested in watching Ariadne. I try hard to drink a lot of water these days—with quite a bit of success—so near the end of the two hours I had to race off to a toilet. When I returned Ariadne and Jennifer were interacting on a dream of Jennifer’s. Ariadne completed her comments on that dream by commenting that Jennifer and I are soul-mates and that in that respect she—Ariadne—was jealous. Much mirth from the gathering.

After the gathering, just before we left, Jennifer and I had a very brief talk with Ariadne. I had the sense that she may have come to Australia to help me, so I asked her if this were her first time in the country. Yes, “But not the last!�. Was I the first person here to whom she gave a session? She thought a moment and then said that I was first on my day, but third overall. Close enough. We then told her that we had arranged a PET scan for me and got no response. She then said that I should start taking courses—whatever I needed to do—to become a healer, teacher/shaman, as that was my soul’s purpose and following it would be what would heal me. This confused us somewhat, as hadn’t she told me at the time that Jesus had healed me? Details. We had arranged my upcoming PET scan and could take it all from there.

While I’m on the subject of Ariadne, I recently wrote of my stated purpose in life during her session but wasn’t sure I was remembering accurately (it’s a problem for me). I’m still not positive what I said exactly, but now think that it was “To be of service to others�.

On Tuesday we heard from Dr. Laherty that one of the tests performed on the cell vaccine had come back inconclusive and that the test would have to be redone. This meant that when we went to Brisbane to get the PET and MRI scans that I would not receive the first injection in the cell vaccine trial.

On Wednesday, Tara came to our house very early in the morning to take care of the kids for the day. Chloe and Dylan both love her and so Jennifer and I were quite easily able to begin the two-hour drive to Brisbane. We had to stop at a hospital 45 minutes north of us in Tugun to pick up my latest MRI scan so that we could provide it to the hospital doing the PET scan, so I called to ensure that they were even open yet. They were, and the woman could not find the scan but said she’d look for it. I told her that we’d be there in about five minutes. When we got there and went in, she handed me the scan immediately and told me that she had almost come downstairs to the parking lot to hand it to me! This is a great country. Jennifer and I had been on a tight schedule and so this made it easy to get back in the car and be heading up the highway again in just a few minutes. We called the Wesley Hospital to verify that they had received the appropriate form from Dr. Laherty, as they could not perform the scan without it and although we would arrive within an hour we would be a little late. They agreed to contact the doctor directly and to call if there were any trouble. When we arrived they had everything they needed and in only a few minutes they called for me and took me in, leaving Jennifer alone for two hours with our PowerBook to finally manage some writing (which will be posted in her journal soon) without being impeded by kids—or me.

I was taken into a room with a comfortable bed and injected with radioactive material. Ah, good times… Then I was left alone for an hour to get nice and radioactive for the scan. Having had to get up very early, I dozed the entire hour. Then the scanner operator came and brought me in for the PET scan—my first. The scanner looked like a giant donut, into the centre of which points a very thin and narrow raised plastic bed. The operator changed the bed for one suitable to a head scan, which was only barely the width of a head at the top. I laid down on the bed and it wasn’t even wide enough for my arms. The operator brought over a big loop and put it over my elbows, so that my arms had some support across my chest and didn’t merely flop down. It was perfectly comfortable. Then he came over with a very wide and long strip of sticky tape and wrapped it around my head and the frame. I took this to mean that I should stay still. He explained that that was exactly what it meant, as there would be two scans and each took 15 minutes, during which I should not move. He said that he’d try to warn me when the second scan would start, as I would be moved by the machine and “That sometimes makes people jump out of their skins!�. He went off to start the scan, and I took the opportunity to have a word with Jesus that this was it: Last chance to heal me so that this thing can see it. The scan itself was essentially unnoticeable. This was quite a change after the many MRI scans I’ve had, which are always very loud with a variety of noises. I remained almost asleep. He came in after awhile and said that the first one was done and that the next would start within fifty seconds. When I was moved I found it completely unobjectionable, and I continued to be extremely still and relaxed. In what seemed a short time the operator came in and told me that I was done and pulled all the various bits and pieces off me. To my great relief, that sticky tape was not very sticky. Dodged that bullet. He began to ask me to wait a few minutes while he checked the scan that had just completed to ensure that I hadn’t moved, then recanted, noting that I had been completely still in the first one already. I grabbed the door to leave the room—and it flung me against the wall! That was an unexpectedly heavy metal door, and I’m either stronger or lighter than I thought I was.

I hadn’t been allowed to eat for six hours prior to the scan and so I hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before. I was very hungry. Fortunately, Jennifer had brought me a box of various things. Unfortunately, there was an unexpectedly large number of problems: Things appearing ripe but were not, this one not for me… Gah! We had to be at another hospital very soon for my MRI, so I scarfed everything edible while we drove over so that I could make it until we could find something else after the MRI. As with the previous, we had never been to this hospital either, making four that we have been to in Brisbane alone thus far—and there are more. As with all the others, the staff was delightfully friendly, pleasant, and occasionally even playful. The MRI itself was unique, even with the ten or so I’ve had already. It was a GE model, a company I had no idea even made the things. But hey, the PET scanner had been made by Siemens, so there you go. As with PET, you have to remain still during an MRI. But this machine vibrated continuously and I was concerned that I would be vibrating too, ruining the images. When it appeared to be a pause I squeezed the “call ball� you have in your hands during these things and told them that it was shaking me. Yup, it does that. No worries, but the weirdest MRI machine I’ve been in so far.

Now free of Brisbane we headed south to Ikea to pick up a bit for home, as, quite strangely—yet conveniently in the moment—it contains about the only “restaurant� we know in the Brisbane region. So I finally got some food.

When we got home we found that Tara, Chloe and Dylan had had a great day together—to our delight and relief. Tara had driven Chloe to pre-school and she and Dylan had enjoyed it there so much that they stayed for 90 minutes. Tara’s sister is due to give birth to her first child in about five weeks, and so Tara took Chloe and Dylan over to her sister’s house and they all had a great time.

On Friday when we were to go Brisbane again, Chloe was to visit Sea World with friends, so she was all set. Tara came to the house just before we had to leave, delighted to again take care of Dylan for the day. He climbed in her car as soon as we put his car seat in it and clearly wanted to go for a ride, as he often does. Asked directly if he wanted to go for a ride he nodded. So she changed plans, hopped in her car and they took off. Jennifer and I loaded her van to head to Brisbane—and it wouldn’t start. It had played this game a few days prior and I’d got it going, but we were in no mood so we quickly moved to my car, a vehicle that I’ve lent to numerous friends and family members but haven’t driven myself since my grand-mal over a half-year ago. We were off towards Brisbane soon afterwards. We soon received a call from Dr. Laherty confirming our appointment, and I verified that he had received the PET scan. We picked up my MRI from Wednesday on the way, with me being very warmly greeted by a women I recognised as one of the counter staff I’d seen there a couple days ago, even though she wasn’t even working with me. I’m either really darn cute or these Aussies are really darn friendly.

Minutes later we were at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, where I had had my neurosurgery. Soon after we arrived in the neurology department we ran into Donna Spooner, the neuropsychologist who had given me a gruelling mental test on 10 February (1 March journal entry) prior to surgery. After our test I had told her some of the amazing experiences I was having at the time and she had been very interested to hear them and we liked each other. At the time she had mentioned that an IQ test had been buried amid the other tests but that she hadn’t yet calculated my score, so I took the opportunity now to tell her that I had been interested to see if I had still had an IQ and she immediately went to get the result for me. She quickly returned with a small piece of paper—right as Dr. Laherty showed up, so we agreed that we’d visit her office after we met with Dr. Laherty.

He started by explaining that when he had been called on Wednesday morning by the hospital that was to do our PET scan, asking him about his approval form, he had actually driven to that hospital and completed a form from scratch! The man is a saint. We then began immediately by looking at, discussing, and comparing the PET and MRI scans. The MRI showed what could be seen as a variety of things: tumour, scar tissue or damaged tissue… the list goes on. The PET scan shows… nothing. The side of my brain that was operated on is clearly different, but there is no appearance of tumour at all. He explained that given the statistical data, ie, certain types of tumours re-grow, the MRI would be interpreted as tumour re-growth and strongly suggest radiation treatment. In fact, because—again statistically—this type of tumour re-grows—but not in my case, mark my words—radiation is generally done around the affected area as a preventative, regardless of the PET scan.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

We then turned to my first dendritic cell vaccine injection. Dr. Laherty presented a very small vial containing my blood cells along with tumour cells so heavily irradiated that they are harmless and would be dead soon. Seeing the vial immediately felt like seeing old friends. I held it and silently expressed my intent to it, and he then injected it under the skin in my stomach, which wasn’t too bad. This didn’t stop me from making friendly jabs at him about it. He then produced a very large syringe and announced that he needed to take enough of my blood to fill it by about three quarters. Oh, man… he had taken fully ten percent of my blood almost two weeks ago! This earned him more friendly griping from me, but didn’t actually bother me too much. He then said that I was number 13 in the study. Apparently anticipating possible fear about this number from patients, that he had looked this up in numerology and found that it meant change. Mate, you better believe it! No fear from me.

After a very long, informative and enjoyable—needles notwithstanding—session with Dr. Laherty (later, Jennifer told me something that I had not known, which is that he’s a neurosurgeon) we found Donna in her nearby office. She handed me a five page neuropsychological report that she had written on me after our session, commenting that these were generally not given to patients but that she felt that I’d be fine with it. She then told me my IQ score: 110. 75th percentile, baby! Wow. That’s pretty good for a person whose brain is being a bit recalcitrant. After we arrived home that evening I kicked myself that I hadn’t asked her if she could estimate what my score would be without the difficulties presented by the tumour (assuming any difference). I also look forward to reading her report on me.

We began the long drive from Brisbane back to Byron in rush hour—on a Friday. Every day supplies more reasons why we live where we do. While Jennifer wrestled to get out of town (apparently a popular goal), I suggested that we called my mum, as we have a mobile with a speaker-phone. We quickly had her on the phone and explained—after I deliberately tormented her a little with small-talk about weather and traffic, knowing she’d be busting for news—that, as predicted, the PET scan showed what the MRI did not: no tumour. She burst into peals of laughter. Long peals. So long that Jennifer began to cry, but with joy also. After awhile, my mum revealed that her mum, Dulce, my sole remaining grandparent, who lives with my mum, had suddenly commented on the previous Saturday night—at the time apparently apropos of nothing—�It’s amazing how Peter has healed so miraculously�.

Posted by Peter at May 21, 2005 06:40 PM

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