Ok, so I just realized that I promised I wouldn’t wait another month to update my blog and here it is Oct. 1st! Technically….it is still under a month’s time since my last post, so I hope you will forgive me for the delay. J
Let’s see….where were we? Ah, yes…..the beginning of radiation.
Monday, June 24th is when it all began. I drove to radiation, put my little pink parking permit in the front windshield and went inside to undergo my 20 minutes of therapy. I know that they informed me that it wouldn’t hurt, but deep down I was nervous and a little uneasy about it all. It didn’t make me feel any better that I was entering a room where there were warning signs outside the door that read CAUTION “high radiation area” and CAUTION “radioactive materials” to alert the general public.
Upon entering the room, the technicians took my picture and confirmed my birth date to make sure they had the correct radiation plan in place for my session. After undressing from the waist up, they had me lie down on the table and relax my arms up above my head on my “pillow”. They kept fidgeting with it and telling me to relax as they pushed and pulled my arms every which way. I told them it didn’t feel right and they realized that they had the WRONG pillow underneath me. (it was another patient’s pillow mold, apparently with the same last name). Ummmm…I was a little uncertain before….but now they had me VERY anxious and not very confident that they knew what they were doing at all! They shrugged it off like it was no big deal….but I knew deep down that it really WAS a big deal!
As with any of my treatments, I experienced a number of tears before we began. I think that uncertainty just brings out my fears, and my form of release comes in the way of tears ….so out they came! Unlike, any of my other health care providers (which have all been AWESOME), I didn’t receive any heart-warming reassurances that everything was going to be ok or compassionate hand squeezes…they simple went about their work positioning me where I needed to be while the tears fell down my face. I was unable to even wipe my own tears because my arms were positioned above my head and I was supposed to lay as still as possible. I felt like the techs there that day were just going through the motions of their job with not a care in the world. Didn’t they understand what I was going through? Couldn’t they see that I was upset? I will never forget how I felt that day and how surprised I was at their lack of compassion.
After a while of them making sure I was setup and locked in place (using the laser lights, a ruler, and making me hold my breath while they measured and re-measured my location), they left the room. I can still remember the sound of the door closing. WAIT! I don’t want to be in here all alone!! Come back!!
It doesn’t matter what I wanted or didn’t want…the therapy was put in place for me to try to avoid my cancer from reoccurring, so I just needed to suck it up and go through with it. Whatever they were going to do to me was worth it if I could remain cancer free!
So there I was, all by myself, laying on this table in the middle of a dimly lit room with a HUGE machine sitting above and below my head/chest area. I wasn’t supposed to move at all but I couldn’t stop my eyes from looking here and there and everywhere before they began. I was alone in this room that was dangerous for anyone else to be in and I didn’t know what to expect.
The techs could see me, but I couldn’t see them. There was a video camera in the room and speakers so I could hear what they were instructing me to do, but I still felt all alone.
I decided that I would keep my eyes shut for the duration of my first radiation treatment. Before they began, I shut my eyes tightly and they didn’t open up until my treatment was completed. I am not sure if I thought that it would hurt “less” if my eyes were closed, or if I just wanted to avoid seeing things I didn’t want to see, but I felt better having them closed, so that’s what I did.
The machine was located both above and below the table I was lying on and it rotated around me to pinpoint specific angles of my body to radiate. The top part of the machine was in the shape of a circle a with a rectangular piece of glass on the bottom side. Inside the glass you could see a number of different sheets or sections of “lead” coming from each of the long sides of the rectangle to meet in the middle. The lead pieces moved in and out of sight to create different openings or patterns to allow the the radiation beams through. (For those of you that do not know…lead is something that is used to block harmful beams of radiation and often times you will get a lead filled apron to wear when getting x-rays at the dentist or other doctors to protect your body from unnecessary harm.)
The patterns of lead in this machine would change for each burst of radiation I received. The sound of the lead sheets moving around reminded me of a “Transformer” movie with a lot of robots transforming into something different….it was very mechanical in nature.
On the bottom side of me, they extended out a big round circle (about the size of a small kitchen table) and it was called the “beam stopper”. It was super loud when they first extended it out, but when I asked what it was and they told me it was in place to block the radiation beams from going right through the wall, I understood why it was so noisy! I am sure it was full of lead and extra heavy! The idea of having strong bursts of radiation pointed right at me that could potentially go through the wall and harm other people made me even more uneasy, but what could I do except try to relax and just power through it all?
Once the linear accelerator was in place and the lead patterns were conformed, they instructed me to take a breath and hold it. While I held my breath, I could hear a long, low continuous beep that indicated that they were radiating my body. Once the beep stopped, they told me I could breathe again, while they repositioned the accelerator for the next burst. The length of time each burst of radiation took really varied in nature. Some were longer periods of time with lower concentration beams (maybe 40 seconds) and others were very brief with extremely high concentrated bursts (maybe 2 seconds).
I don’t know about you, but I realized that I am not very good at holding my breath for long periods of time. There were several instances where I would get panicky that I couldn’t hold it any longer! I think I freaked out because I wanted to be able to breathe, but I didn’t know how much longer I needed to hold my breath and I couldn’t move or talk to them to find out when it would stop.
Having to hold my breath was probably the most stressful part about my radiation. I was happy that I couldn’t feel anything while it was happening, and I was glad that it was only a short period of time (it took about 20 minutes to complete and then I was on my way)...
Below are some pictures of the machine I was describing above (you can click on it to enlarge it)...
Staytuned for Radiation part 3!
Have a great week everyone…
Love to all!
Nae
