4 days of radiation down. What is radiation like? It’s like nothing. My chest and abdomen now look like someone is playing tic tac toe alone on it. I have x’s in several spots and get a new line everyday. This is how they line me up each time and measure any changes in my body.
I check in for treatment and go back to the dressing room. I put on a gown top and wash my hands. They come get me. We stop at a desk for my name and birthday and then we enter the room. It kind of feels like entering a room on a Star Wars fleet. There is a hazard sign. They ask what music I want to hear. I tell them I don’t care. We expose the right side of my body and lie down on the table. I grab a hold of two bars above my head as if I am getting on an amusement park ride. We scoot me around until I am lined up correctly (up, up, down, left,left, right, A, B, lol). They leave the room.
The machine rotates around me taking scans. They come back into the room and apply a slightly damp towel over my exposed area. They told me that they use the towel to trick the machine into thinking my skin is thicker than it is so that the radiation can be stronger. They leave the room again. The machine rotates around me only closer this time. The machine has this plate of rods in it that move during treatment. It reminds me of that infomercial product that is designed to replicate strange angles for cutting/replicating. As I watch it I am reminded that I want one of those things. I don’t have anything to cut or replicate but maybe I would if I had one of those things.
I get up and go back to the dressing room. I have to carry my belongings with me because the lockers are off limits right now. (Here they are. At the other campus they were still using them.) Before putting my shirt back on I apply a lotion that they recommended all over the right side from my neck, arm pit and chest. I get dressed. I wash my hands again and I’m done. All said and done treatment takes 15 minutes. On Fridays I meet with the doctor so that he can look over my skin and then I’m out. I feel nothing. I see nothing, unlike what I imagined which was a light show to match Pink Floyd’s including a green glowing light penetrating my body with healing vibes and making me glow from the inside out. Nope that doesn’t happen.
I do hear though. Like I said, they ask me what music I want to hear. I don’t want to tell them to play my favorites because I don’t want to associate my favorites with radiation. So somebody in the universe has a sense of humor and nostalgia about the random music that gets played. My first day I was transported back to driving to my friend Jessica’s house on the weekends during college while belting out late 90’s country. The next day I was reminded of my high school friend Maye as Runaway Train floated around the room. Thursday. Well Thursday was kind of a crazy day. It was 70’s classic day. The first song was kind of a groovy little tune. It wasn’t Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” but it had some similar messaging as that. I thought it was rather appropriate for the things going on lately. The next song was Ozzy and while I don’t mind Ozzy, I don’t really want his song about darkness and death to be the soundtrack during my healing light time. Thankfully they picked up on that on their own and switched it. What followed it. Comfortably Numb. Now I’m back in my dorm room with Myka (no, not getting high) drawing on my coffee table with highlighters with only the black light on.
On my first day of treatment I cried. I realize it’s because I have compartmentalized this journey and radiation was what scared me the most. I’ve been Comfortably Numb most of the time. If someone who is helping me or providing me care asks me a question about how the inside of me is doing I can’t keep my composure as well. We can talk about the after chemo aches that make me feel old. We can talk about how I can go from burning up hot to freezing cold in an instant. I’ve practiced talking about all that. But ask me if you are overwhelming me or ask me how I am doing with fatigue and here come the flood gates. It feels like they shine a flashlight into a very dark corner and find the scared little girl hiding there. The little girl who is cowered there just waiting for all this to be over. She knows it isn’t over yet so she doesn’t want the light shining just yet. I guess these people and their questions are meant to bring a little light to the girl so that she can remember that one day this will be over and remind her she doesn’t have to carry all this on her own shoulders. You would think by now I would have learned.
PS Stay cootie🦠 free
