By way of introduction, I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma on May 5, 2006. That puts me right smack at the halfway point of what one of my doctors said back then. I recall his words well. “I think I can give you a good seven to eight years,” he said.

But, who’s counting.

I will be writing a monthly column for The Myeloma Beacon about my experiences since my diagnosis with myeloma.

You can look for my future columns under the title “Birds in Spring.” The title comes from a line in the 1970s Judy Collins' song “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” (written by Sandy Denny), which goes like this: So come the storms of winter, and then the birds in spring again. It's a sentiment I think every cancer survivor understands.

Since my diagnosis, I’ve gone through a lot – lots of chemo, a couple of stem cell transplants. Those “adventures,” however, are stories for another day.

I achieved a complete remission, against some pretty big odds. Now, after three years, I’ve begun showing some signs of disease progression. I’d hoped to get more than 36 months of “progression-free survival,” as the doctors call it, but it’s been a pretty good time while it lasted. I’ll take what I can get.

So now my doctors are trying to figure out what to do for me next. One was ready to start treating me for relapse about two months ago, but another suggested more tests.

Yes, you’ll note, I have two doctors. Actually, I consider it that I have three, although the third is someone at this point only for a consultation. Again, a story for another day.

Today, I want to talk about tests I’ve had recently. One of them was a PET scan, which stands for positron emission tomography. It’s done by the same machine that does a CT scan.

Over the last four years, I’ve had plenty of tests, x-rays, scans, and MRIs – that’s a fact of life with this disease – but this was my first PET scan. That’s a bit unusual, I’m told. Sooner or later, though, if you have myeloma, you’ll have a PET scan. An MRI and a skeletal survey were among the other things my doctor had ordered recently.

I was talking on the phone with a friend just before going to my PET scan, and he questioned me about why my doctor had ordered it.

He asked, “What’s that going to reveal that the other tests haven’t?”

“I think,” I responded, “that it’s intended to reveal how deep the pockets of my insurance company are.”

What sets a PET scan apart from a CT scan and an MRI is that PET scans are done by the hospital’s nuclear medicine department.

Nuclear. As in radioactive.

An hour prior to the scan, they inject you with a radioactive isotope and give it time to course through your bloodstream.

They tell you not to worry about the amount of radiation that you get. However, to give you an idea of what they really think, the bathroom outside the nuclear medicine scanning room has big warning signs describing it as “hot.” The signs say that it’s only for the use of patients and that everyone else should keep their butts out of there if they know what’s good for them. OK, it doesn’t exactly say that, but that’s the message.

When they’re done with you and they send you out into the unsuspecting world, they tell you to stay away from little children (“don’t hold them for a couple of days”) and pregnant women (they didn’t expand on this one).

And they give you a card. Mine read:

Mr. Ganim, Louis [filled in with a Sharpie] had a procedure in Nuclear Medicine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Measurable levels of radioactivity may be detectable until 5/14/10 [also filled-in].

Measurable levels, huh? They said I would probably need this card if I were traveling out of the country in the next few days.

Someone said that in an airport, I might set off a “radiation sniffer” device and that who-knows-what may descend on me thinking they’ve detected a dirty-bomb-carrying terrorist.

That made me think about the fact that I’m often passing through Manhattan’s Penn Station – where there are always NYPD patrol officers, police dogs, and National Guardsmen/women. There are also occasionally these big burly guys with automatic weapons, who, by the way, would laugh in my face if I took a swing at one and connected. That’s the only way I could beat one of these guys – if I got him doubled over with laughter. And then there’s the really scary Homeland Security dudes in black and/or camouflage with high-powered rifles and God knows what else they have, whom I’ve seen in the past in the shadows and deep corners, mostly outside.

That’s what I can actually see -- who knows what else one might discover. A radiation sniffer, perhaps? Well, I, for one, wouldn’t put it past them. In fact, I expect them to have one.

So, if I set one of those off in crowded Penn Station and all these counter-terrorism-unit-types pounce on me, what am I going to do? I’m going to reach in my pocket (imagine what’s going to happen when I try to put my hand in my pocket!) and pull out this flimsy business card from Sloan-Kettering with my name filled in with a Sharpie that says it’s really OK that I’m radioactive?

I’m not sure that will go down all that well for me. These anti-terrorism types strike me as being a bit humorless. Think Jack Bauer.

As luck would have it, though, none of this happened, and now, presumably, I’m no longer “hot,” in the parlance of nuclear medicine.

I did come up with a fun idea though. I think that nuclear medicine departments ought to have “loaner” Geiger counters that you can check out and play with. You know, to see how long the radiation lingers in your bed after you get up in the morning. Or to see if you leave a radioactive trail around the office. Fun things like that.