April 13, 2010 – Radiation dry run and THE MASK

Today was an interesting day.  Got up this morning and found myself back on the Imodium train.  I would say that eventually the chemo would wash out of my system and my stomach would recover except I’ll be having a low intensity chemo dose every Monday during radiation treatments.  Oh well.  Overall, I feel good.  Rode the LifeCycle for twelve minutes at half my usual intensity before lunch.  Took a shower and found that my back was having spasms.  I hit it with a lot of hot water.  Of course, this happens on a day when I need to lie prone on a hard table!  After a quick lunch, we packed up and drove to Boston.

The Nuclear Radiation Department has a greeter.  He gave me my radiation treatment card and showed me the workflow system.  The card has a bar code on it.  Once scanned, the monitor briefly displays my information and then shows a list of the radiation machines and their status (e.g. On Time or Delayed At Originating Airport.)  If the doctor needs to see me, his name will appear next to my machine.  Slick technology, when I scan my card, my data goes to the radiation machine team and the nursing staff.

One of the radiation techs came over and sent me into a changing room where I stripped off my clothes from the waist up and put on a johnny (why is called a johnny?)  Once I was ready, he took Ann & I on a walk down a corridor to the radiation control center for my machine.  The center features multiple monitors including one with my photo (just so they know they have the correct patient.)  As far as I can figure, each component of the radiation machine is hooked into a separate monitor.  The tech explained that the staff would monitor me via video cameras and that the room had microphones so they would hear anything I said.  Then we went around the corner to the radiation room and entered the world of sci-fi turned to reality.

I didn’t have a lot of time to examine the machine.  I was laid down on a table (similar to a scan table) and my head was centered on a support.  When my mask was constructed, my head was on a twin of the support.  They aligned me left to right and then brought out MY MASK.  They slid it on and locked it down.  My head, neck, and chest were immobilized.  Wearing THE MASK is cool, especially with this massive device with multiple arms and lasers spewing green and red beams.  Ann took a photo of me on the table fully masked.  Note the laser beam on my neck and another across the johnny.

 Once I was locked in, everyone else evacuated the radiation room.  Soon, the multiple arms of the machine began moving.  Each stopped over my head, flashed lights and lasers across me and hummed.  Once each arm was done, it blinked and moved on.  I felt like I should be replying to these arms or at least be saying hello or thank you or something polite. The whole process took about fifteen minutes.  It was similar to a live run, only instead of radiating me, they took x-rays and measurements for review by my radiologist, a physicist, and one other specialist.  Oh, they play music over the loudspeakers while the treatment is going on.  They picked out Elton John for me (must be my age and lack of ‘do - all the hits: “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”, “Benny And The Jets”, etc. – at least they could have given me Tumbleweed Connection) but invited me to bring my iPod, iPhone, or a CD with music of my choice.  That’s going to be interesting.  Not only will the music be for me, I also get to educate the ears of the radiation room staff as every sound in the room is piped to them.  I’ll avoid the impulse to bring Coltrane’s Ascension.  But I will have fun with musical selections.  I’ll keep you posted.

After my dry run, we saw one of my radiologist’s nurses who went through miscellaneous details about the treatments.  Then we were free to drive home through Boston traffic, a packed Mass Pike (until the I-495 interchange), and rush hour Worcester mayhem.

I feel good.  I feel Bring It On good, ready for the radiation treatments to begin.  I’ve halfway there.  Let’s go! 

Thanks as always for your comfort, support, and communications.  You are all unbelievable and I appreciate every thing you do for me!

Love…

Richard