Radiation Week 1

I started radiation this week and I didn't love it. 
As a matter of fact, it caused a lot of anxiety --- which came with a lot of nausea. 

Which is maybe why I am seeing words like "barf" in word-finds,
even when they aren't in the list. 

On Monday, I cried during treatment.

On Tuesday, I hyperventilated.

On Wednesday, they started me on sedative.

On Thursday and Friday, things went a little better. 

Tomorrow, we start again. 

That's my poem.

Preparing for Baymax

Tomorrow I will start radiation. I don't want to go. From everything I have heard, radiation is generally tolerated much better than chemotherapy, but still. I'm disinterested. 

On Friday, I went in for the practice round, which they call a "simulation" to pretend that it isn't terrifying. Or maybe that is the point? To simulate the terror that you will feel once the actual treatment starts? Well, it worked. I was properly terror-stricken. 

I won't go so far as to say I had a panic attack, but I was panicked. I wanted to sit up and say "hey, all you strangers. How about we just stop for a bit and talk about this and/or does anyone have a spare bit of Ativan they'd like to share with me?" But I didn't, because:

1. I would have hit my head on one of the robot arms of the linear accelerator machine.

2. My movement would have caused the sharpie marks they had drawn all over me to become mis-aligned with the grid of scary, green lines emitted therefrom. (To clarify, I mean that the green lines were being emitted from the robot arms, not from the no-fun dot to dot on my chest. If my body could shine green lines out of it, I suspect that we might be past the point at which radiation could help.)

3. My hospital gown would have fallen down to my waist and I felt like baring one breast and a doughy abdomen was enough exhibition for everyone already. It certainly was enough for me and I wasn't even looking. 

4. It takes at least 40 minutes for Ativan to kick in so I don't know what I was thinking, anyway.

Instead, I just stayed on the table and tried (mostly successfully) not to cry. It's not their fault, though. Everyone was very nice to me, it's just that the chasm created by my fear was too difficult to cross. 

In an attempt to put me at ease, all of the therapy nurses introduced themselves and (probably by accident) had very kind faces. They gave me a warm blanket and asked me what kind of music I'd like to hear. The answer was "I don't care," because why would I want to permanently associate any of my favorite songs with radiation? 

The ceiling had those pleasing landscape images covering the lights, which was enjoyable except for the fact that there was a dead tree in the middle of one of the pictures and I couldn't stop staring at it. I don't suppose it was purposefully representing morbidity, but you never know.

The most considerate thing that they did, though, was to model the machine after Baymax from the movie Big Hero 6.

Do you think that was intentional? Probably not. Maybe, though? I'll ask tomorrow. 

Baymax notwithstanding, the whole procedure was not my favorite. Based on the mapping appointment, I was prepared for the hospital gown and the lying with my arms above my head part and the disembodied voice giving me instructions from another room bit. I didn't know about the zillions of measurements that they would take while standing over my inert self, though. I didn't know about the bolus (sticky, gel pad) that it would take three nurses to place on me like a cold, gluey, crappy Jello jiggler. I also didn't know that they would come at me from two different directions to trim the bolus with scissors working alarmingly near my skin. 

And I certainly didn't know that I would have such a strong mental reaction. And the fact that I didn't predict it is why I drove myself to the appointment and had planned to go back to work afterwards. I did not account for the fact that it may become difficult to breathe and that I would want to vomit all over the side of Highway 36. Luckily for me, I have a whole medicine cabinet full of anti-nausea medications. So, I was well-equipped. 

Anyway, that's all I have to say about that. I haven't had a super-great weekend and tomorrow starts 5-6 more weeks of treatment. I'm having a sad time.