My previous PET was a different isotope.

I had a PET/CT last Friday. I was HOT -- but only for about 24 hours! I have a radiation detector, and the LED that normally blinks every couple of seconds -- or less -- was solid red (I kept the sound off, it would have been a constant buzz)! I was about three or four orders of magnitude above background (I took some pictures of the readings). This isotope has about a 50 minute half-life. So a lot of people would say I was "clean" after ten half-lives -- in this case then: By dinner time.

But the best nuclear physicists I've met (and I've met dozens) prefer to speak of 20 half-lives. You could watch the numbers dropping every time I put the radiation detector up to my body in the same place. Blinking was also elevated if it was simply in the same room, but less and less the further from me the detector was placed, of course.

My previous PET, November 2020, was a different isotope: I was "hot" for about three days* because it had a half-life of about eight hours.

Last time, they wanted to see how much of the cancer was in the bones (LOTS). This time they wanted to see how much my lymph nodes would take up, a few months after chemo was over.

The answer? None!

Here's what the doctor just sent me minutes ago:

"The PET/CT confirms that you have achieved a complete remission. This is great news!"

Blood tests and a bone marrow biopsy a month or two ago had already come out negative. Next blood test is next month -- just to be sure.

Not a bad result after spending two one week visits in the hospital getting 13 or 14 (I lost count; might have been 15) units of blood during the two lengthy hospital stays, plus a dozen additional trips to complete my chemo treatments and another two dozen visits to get blood tests -- all during the worst pandemic in modern history! I only saw ONE professional medical person with her mask below her nose, and that was a year ago. the medical staff have been marvelous from start to finish.

Radiation has its benefits for mankind. Nuclear weapons and nuclear energy are not among them. (Medical isotopes can be made with at most one or two reactors in the entire world, and many isotopes can be made without a reactor (perhaps from all the Spent Nuclear Fuel lying around in hundreds of locations around the world).

Today Joe Biden announced he is giving Australia the designs for our nuclear submarines so that Australia can build at least eight nuclear submarines of their own. Says it has nothing to do with China. Uh huh.

And today, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a "temporary" nuclear waste repository in Texas, that almost nobody in Texas wants -- not even the Governor, who loves nuclear power. But doesn't want to deal with the waste.

We all have a lot of work to do!

Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA
Originally published Spetember 17, 2021

*A small addendum:

After the first PET I probably should have isolated for closer to a week, rather than just three days, in keeping with the 20 half-lives standard that the best radiation experts suggest rather than the pro-nuker's standard 10 half-lives number.

After 10 half-lives about 1 thousandth of the original amount remains.

After 20 half-lives about 1 millionth of the original amount remains.

Sometimes I think pro-nukers are just really bad at math.

Another addendum (2024):

I'm going to be having another PET/CT later this month, because my doctor suspects the cancer might be back since I've had several strokes and four seizures in the past two years...I'll try to remember to update this blog entry depending on what they find!

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Presentation to the CA Coastal Comm (CCC) Sept. 8, 2021:

Commissioners,

For decades you accepted the production of thousands of tons of nuclear waste. Why? Because the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told you it was "safe" and ALSO told you you cannot make any restrictions based on "safety." They also promised to take the waste away.

I've been at hearings here in California where the moment a citizen mentions "safety" they are cut off.

So I won't talk about safety.

Rather I'm going to talk about consequences, and you CAN make rulings based on ANY potential consequences of any possible accident -- even the rare ones -- the so-called "beyond design basis" accidents.

You have an obligation to consider financial, environmental, and health risks to Californians from any and all possible accidents, ESPECIALLY including events which no reasonable person can responsibly predict the "odds" of them happening.

Extreme weather, terrorism, even just poor work attitudes or mismanagement -- all are unpredictable.

You MUST plan for worst-case scenarios. And if you do, you'll force Diablo Canyon to be permanently closed immediately, because any fool can see what might go wrong at any moment there, by looking at Fukushima or Chernobyl -- or at Hanford. Nobody wants a severe nuclear accident in California. We rebuild after fires, because we can. But areas of Fukushima will be uninhabitable for thousands of years.

To prevent a catastrophic event here, you must insist on better management of the waste at San Onofre and at other sites in California.

Some nuclear waste has been here for decades already. It isn't going anywhere because nobody wants it. Nobody needs it, and the infrastructure -- roads, tunnels and bridges -- is too dilapidated to move it anyway.

Most of the nuclear waste in California is in thin-walled canisters, much of it far too close to earthquake faults and tsunami threats.

It's your obligation to protect Californians, our health, and our economy.

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

postscript:

I've been continuing to listen to the CCC meeting, and a very interesting presentation by Patrick Barnard from "OCOF" talked about groundwater rise that will accompany rising sea levels over the coming decades.

It was a very interesting presentation -- but they did not discuss what might happen at San Onofre if the water table rises AND the ocean storms overtop the puny "sea wall" at the nuclear waste site. It would be good for the CCC to discuss that issue specifically when thinking about the environmental problems they are already thinking about. The ISFSI "island" is not designed to float and might crack, splitting open one or more of the thin-walled canisters (or thick-walled ones, if we had those in that ISFSI) and of course, the current canisters might not be able to cool properly if loaded with sand and debris after a tsunami (perhaps caused by a local underwater landslide or even a nuclear offshore attack)...