Hey, Shoog!

MONDAY, MAY 30, 2011 9:34 PM, EDT

Hey Shoog!

My friend Paul is going to love this one...I miss you Paul!

Paul and I worked together in the University of Wisconsin's Tumor Ablation Research Lab. We performed surgeries on pigs to collect data for preclinical medical research. Don't judge me...they were pigs. And they saved the lives of many Grannies and Pops. Totally worth it.

At any rate, throughout my time in the research lab, I was fortunate to travel to exotic places like Como, Italy and New Orleans, LA (sooo exotic). I will never forget going back to Wisconsin after our trip to NOLA, and Paul was just in sheer awe that everyone used pet-names to address him...names like Darlin', Hun (2 syllables, mind you), and Shoog (as in short for Sugar). We spoke with thick Southern accents (even mine was strongly exaggerated) for weeks after that trip, and to this day I address Paul as Shoog.

What I didn't know then is something that I learned later in my career: there is a diagnostic modality in Radiology called Positron Emission Tomography (PET). It's kind of like a CT Scan, in that it takes pictures of your body like slices of bread (hence tomography), but that's really the only way they are similar. Where CTs emit radiation, a PET scan requires the patient to be injected with kind of a radioactive sugar. The sugar is used because is goes to sites in the body that metabolize it...cancer cells happen to do this.  The radioactive materials are then used to highlight the areas that are activated by the sugar. In essence, one could draw from this conclusion that sugar activates, or excites cancer cells...and that excitement of cancer cells makes them grow.

You know what's really interesting? I've never really had so much of a sweet-tooth. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like a little Ben and Jerry's Phish Food as much as the next girl, but I don't crave it unless I have PMS. And cookies I have always been able to live without. But over the last year, I have developed an insatiable urge to devour sugar...cookies, cupcakes, icing, Krispy Kremes, real Coca-Cola, and Skittles (ohhhh, Skittles!). And I have to wonder if this is my body's desire to feed the thing that wants to grow. Is that possible that it has a drive of its own? An appetite for destruction? 

So here I set out on a new diet plan...do not feed the cancer. Do not stimulate growth. No more refined sugar, Shoog.