Videos! (Note: NOT available on Netflix)

Here are some videos that nicely show the internals (more skeletal stuff and lymph nodes - not gross, but kinda gross, kinda totally cool).

These videos are on YouTube (my private channel).  After they are done, you will see links to other videos I have nothing to do with.  If you want to see them again (they're short), hit the circle with an arrow in the lower left corner.

The first one is only 4 seconds, and is the CT scan that was done for the lymph node biopsy on 7/7/2016.   This shows the nodes in question as black lumps in the middle of my body.  The needle was inserted in my back between a couple of vertebrae to the lymph node on the top.  I think my brain looks quite dense.  (Although this could be taken a couple of different ways!).

 

The second video is 14 seconds, and is my PET scan done on 7/19/2016.  Here's a blurb on what the PET scan is:  

"During a PET/CT scan, the patient is first injected with a glucose (sugar) solution that contains a very small amount of radioactive material. The substance is absorbed by the particular organs or tissues being examined. The patient rests on a table and slides into a large tunnel-shaped scanner. The PET/CT scanner is then able to "see" damaged or cancerous cells where the glucose is being taken up (cancer cells often use more glucose than normal cells) and the rate at which the tumor is using the glucose (which can help determine the tumor grade). By combining information about the body's anatomy and metabolic function, a PET/CT scan provides a more detailed picture of cancerous tissues than either test does alone."

The cancerous lymph nodes light up in purple/orange/yellow at 0:06 and 0:07.  The other organs that uptake the radioactive glucose are the kidneys, brain, heart and bladder - these are your "most active" organs.  Once the dye was put in via a needle into my arm, I had to wait an hour to let it get into my system. The interesting thing was I had to rest in a dark room and not read or use my phone, or even think.  I was asked to not think.  Imagine that.  The radiologist wanted my brain to rest so it didn't light up so much.  Kind of fascinating, but I hope you never have to have a PET scan - they are mainly used to find cancer and other things wrong.  In this instance, I hope you live vicariously through my experience.