9-27-15
For those of you that never experienced radiation, here is a walk through - step by step.
Before you show up, you must be showered. Only Tom's deodorant can be worn, nothing else.
You sit in the waiting room until they call your name, they tell you to change into a gown (since my cancer is on top, no bra, shirt... I take off even my fitbit, etc), lock your stuff in a cubby and wait in the dressing room waiting area. They call you in and you walk into the giant room with the linear accelerator a.k.a. radiation machine. You put your key down on the counter and jump onto the table. You take your arm out of the gown (in my case only one side is being done, so only one arm comes out) and I put it into the braced position. They usually cast you initially so you always fall into the same spot, but because of my neck my cast could not be used and they built me a steel frame with neck support.
Once lying down , they slide a roll under your legs and here is where something is bound to itch you... every darn time, and you cannot move. They take a marker and make dots over your tattoo's so they can see them. Then you say that is your picture on the screen and say your birthday. This assures them they have the right set up information. Then the measuring starts.... I know mine by heart 13.2, 18.8. You cannot even shift, scratch, nothing. A tug here and a push there you are in place. They also raise the table 5 feet in the air, very close to the machine. They slide a piece onto the machine and in that piece a plastic sheet with holes is affixed.
Then they leave. You are motionless as you wait for the machine to start humming. I use this moment to pray. Every single time. My setting starts on my left aiming at the inside of my breasts, as my cancer is there. Twice the machine goes to life humming along. You do not feel anything. Then the machine repositions, on my right, almost under my side as it does the outer side of my breast. Again, two times. In that time frame, the nurses are coming in and out often.
They say, "You can relax our arm" and it literally takes my left arm to help my right arm out of place. The table is let down, roll taken out and arm is put into gown. Off I go.
This is the routine every day except Monday. Monday is a longer day. It starts with x-rays on the table once aligned, this is for their assurance that they are getting the exact spot the week before. Then radiation. It is harder to keep still that long and arm goes a bit numb. Sometimes I move my tongue or toes like mad... just to be rebellious.
Then when all that is done, you wait in the dressing room waiting area again and they call you into the office. I see my radiation oncologist once a week, in my case, Monday's. He checks to see how my breast looks, if too red, etc and off I go.
I am to put aquaphor on breast after treatment and before bed.
I did three weeks now, halfway there. Yahoo.
My breast is getting a bit darker, a touch red but so far so good.
