Aniseed and Valium

Today was another PET scan: more fasting and having radioactive glucose markers injected into your veins. A PET scan works by having a hormonal marker attach itself to cancerous cells which show up as radioactive when passed through a scanner. On top of this, there's a CT scan: high-definition imaging to show exactly where in the body the cancerous cells are located.
You always get valium to relax you before the scan; not because the claustrophobia might get to you but because you don't want to have your muscles taking up the marker and returning false positives. Normally with CT scans, you have to drink iodine diluted in lemon squash to improve the imaging, but this would interfere with the PET so isn't distributed. Apparently the boffins have discovered that aniseed performs the same trick without the interference, so that's what I had to drink today.
The PET is a long drawn-out business: it's full body so takes upwards of an hour and you have to lie motionless (and not say anything) for an hour beforehand while the marker takes up. I remain unconvinced that any amount of valium will prevent me from thinking about the results, which I won't find out for six weeks.