Handwash My Delicates, Chemo

Dan is the original cat killed by curiosity. What's 220 volts of electricity going through your body if it means you can figure out how a monitor works?

So y'all can imagine that a disk full of digital radioactivated internal images of himself has led to hours, HOURS! of perusing, tinkering, and "what's this thingy?" commentary. Dan's unspoken life goal is to prove that he can do anyone's job with 48-hours notice and a Straight Dope message thread. This weekend, he's been busy playing radiologist, poring over his scans and trying to divine what they mean.

Inevitably, the fascination gave way to the reality that this is his body, and there's cancer in there somewhere and he was LOOKING RIGHT AT IT, AHHHHH! Okay, maybe that was me, but still -- y'all, that spinning torso down there? That's Dan and his cancer.

Those dark areas indicate where glucose is being consumed. Cancer cells consume glucose. Now, the heart and the brain are supposed to be dark. The, ahem, pelvic area -- that's where Dan emptied his bladder before going into the scan.

But everything else? Could be nothing. Could be cancer.

It finally got the best of Dan, too. Saturday night he had a dream that they gave him the results of his test. It was some kind of list, and hundreds of "cancer citations" were listed. He was telling me about it early Sunday morning as we were waiting for the kids' cantankerous greeting of the dawn. I'd had my own series of nightmares involving rescuing David from a storm drain during a flood, so both of us were relieved to find ourselves in our own bed after a restless night.

I listened, and thought about it some. I settled on the following comment as appropriately comforting:

"Baby, you're going to have chemo. It's going to go through your entire body. It's not like they were going to spot-treat the cancer. It's a hot-water bleach washing that gets all the stains at once."

There's no longer any doubt in my mind that I am a suburban wife and mother. I now speak in laundry metaphors.