I am full of...

[cjsmith]

...technitium-99. (This is for a triphase bone scan.) The half life is six hours, so in a day I'll be back to normal background; in the meantime I shouldn't try to fly at a commercial airport.

Naturally this got me wondering about the medical supply of an isotope whose half life is six hours. El Camino Hospital probably has a moly cow. I get to go back for the bone portion of the scan in a couple of hours, so I'll ask.

I love asking medical people about things. Techs either love me or hate me. :-)

Comments

[exvapi.livejournal.com]

While performing my duties as a lab experiment for NIH, I was administered 6.1 mCi of indium-111 pentetreotide. While this was being injected into my vein the tech suddenly realized that they had failed to ask if I was flying back home or driving to NYC after the round of studies. Seems there is a get out of jail free card they have to get from Homeland Security to allow passage through the scanners and that I would have needed it for the next several days if flying.
Do know if the half0life of indium-111 is that long, but maybe folks could enlighten me.

[rfrench.livejournal.com]

Normal 111-In has a half-life of 2.8 days. The excited state, 111(m)-In, has a half-life of 7.7 min.

[exvapi.livejournal.com]

As the test was performed 2 hours after and then again 24 hours after injectioon, it must have been the normal 111.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh cool. It's good to know there's a way to get it done.

When a coworker saw my little elbow band-aid and asked whether I'd sprung a leak, I told her no, I was radioactive... but at a level where the only thing I shouldn't try to do is fly commercial. There was a nice pause before she said "Oooohhhhh..." :-)