Feelin' groovy (ish)

My flirtation with higher consciousness is already kaput.

For today's PET/CT scan, which sought signs of cancer in my body, I turned to the oevre of Paul Simon instead of trying to reach within my soul and experience mindfulness.

"I'm going to Graceland, Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee," I hummed. "I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told..."

Tone-deaf though I am, I have enough musical sense to wince at how bad I sounded. Luckily the whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of big fans and the fact that the technician was in an adjacent room meant no one else had to be subjected to this desecration of Mr. Simon's immortal works.

A PET/CT scan is nowhere near as bad as an MRI.

First, there was the now-familiar pat-down of my arm, with much frowning over how teensy-tiny my veins are, not to mention the way they squirm away from the needle stick, like desperate little worms unearthed in the garden. It took three pokes to gain entry.

"You really should do biceps crunches with soup cans to get those veins plumped up for chemo," the technician said reprovingly. "Even though you're having a port implanted, only nurses and port-certified technicians can use that; you're still going to need a lot of blood draws from this arm and you have really difficult veins."

Then, a boring hour sitting still in a recliner -- no reading; no cell phone use; why, oh why, didn't they tell me to bring my iPod? -- while a radioactive isotope laced with a sugar solution coursed through my veins.

"Cancer loves sugar; it gobbles it up just like Ms. Pac Man goes after those little cherries," the tech said. "If there are any tumors in your body, they'll light up in the scan."

Finally, the actual scan. The machine looked like a giant doughnut, open on both ends and about four feet long and a couple of feet in diameter -- much better than the claustrophobic MRI capsule. I went through in increments, so my head was out of it for part of the time, and I scrunched my eyes closed for the rest.

Small children and pregnant women need to steer clear of radioactive moi for the rest of the day.

The brain MRI came back all clear, and I have every reason to believe that so will the body scan.