Today was my first radiation session. By now I was already almost accustomed to the experience because of the "simulation session" and other prep work that had previously been done. Last week I had what I like to call my facial-gone-horribly-wrong session, which involved lying down on a narrow table and having a therapist plaster down a thick, malleable hunk of plastic on my face, all the while having the table move backwards and forwards under a tunnel-like structure known as a CT scanner. This experience was quite the juxtaposition against the lovely and ethereal facial I had experienced the week before at the Eastman spa -- before I even knew that I would require radiation. The plastic took fifteen minutes to dry and formed a solid mask.
My prep session concluded with the receipt of three actual tattoos, one just below my breasts and the two others on each side of my ribs. The spa-gone-wrong therapists had been going full speed ahead moving and adjusting me and feeling me up and were about to tattoo me when I asked them to kindly relax and, to use an expression from high school, calm their hormones. What these spa-gone-wrong therapists were about to do was to effect a permanent mark on my body, a body that I hoped would at the very least last through another revival of the leggings fad, which judging from it's previous incarnations in the eighties and 2007, would be due for a comeback in 2029. Actually, that will only make me 52 years old, so I hope that I last through a few more revivals, although to be honest I could do without the legwarmers. But I digress. I asked the spa-gone-wrong therapists to get my bra (since I wasn't allowed to move), and requested that they place it on my boobs, so that we could determine the most inconspicuous place for the tattoo relative to my bra line. Because I may wear a bikini top that goes lower than my bra line (a comment I credit to one of the spa-gone-wrong therapists, shockingly enough), the tattoo was placed about an inch or so south of my underwire. The tattoos are, admittedly, relatively tiny, and were, moreover, relatively painless to receive. Apparently the tattoos are required as guidelines to make sure the radiation rays are properly targeted, however according to "Chemotherapy and Radiation for Dummies" - a seriously helpful book that I strongly recommend to anyone receiving either or both of the above - most hospitals have done away with tattoos and now use markers. Oh well, no major harm done, and if anything the tattoos have brought out the bad ass in me.
Yesterday I had a "simulation session", which lasted about 30 spectacularly uncomfortable minutes and involved lying down with the molded mask plastered tightly to my head, which caused my neck to tilt back in a completely unnatural position, while remaining totally immobile as the radiation therapists adjusted, x-rayed, and painted on me - followed by a few rinse and repeats. The mask was molded so closely to my face that it was impossible to breath through my mouth, and for a moment I could barely breath through my nose either, until the therapists kindly removed the mask and drilled a small hole in the nostril area so I could take in some fresh hospital air. Just to give you the full effect, imagine a suffocating mold glued to your head, somewhat like a goalie mask but plastered past your ears and clipped in to the back of the table so that you couldn't move even if you wanted to (which you would, let me tell you).
While in this delightful position, I began my experience as a human canvass. The radiation therapists began to paint (crosses, as I found out later) all over my chest, upper arms and exposed boobs while reading out various measurements, making comments in incomprehensible medical jargon and requiring me to remain completely immobile. The result of this body art is that I look like some kind of devil-worshipping cult victim. Pass the Kool-Aid, please! Thankfully the therapists covered my boobs when they weren't being decorated, but this was only after I had requested this courtesy. I realize that these people are professionals and need to do their job, but they may want to consider the covering up a patient's breasts when not in use. Not bearing it all can make the experience more bearable.
Today was D-Day, my first day of being zapped, and it involved some more body art and further readjustments, with radiation therapists pitter-pattering in and out of the room to perform x-rays. I could partly see through the mask, and saw various star-trekky machines gliding and lowerering on top of me. At one point one of the machines went so low that I feared it would squash me, but it stopped short. I really need to start trusting these therapists - after all, they are professionals - and while they provided barely any explanation as to what they were doing and practically left me in the dark (quite literally,with my mask), they were not unkind. However I had thought that they would let me know before the actual radiation took place, but at one point they just they walked back in the room and told me it was over. I asked them to let me know in the future when the actual radiation was about to begin, since I was caught off guard would have remained even more still (having no desire to be zapped in the wrong place). After the session was over, I put back on my wig and my turtleneck, my belt, skirt and boots, and stepped back into the world, a marked woman.
