I’ve already said that this cancer experience is all about the mind. Yesterday I put that theory (theme?) to the test yet again, no pun intended.
Procedurally, the order of the day was: consultation, measurement, a CT scan, and getting inked. First, however, there was paperwork. I massacred one of those full-sheet medical questionnaires by listing all the side effects I’ve experienced from the chemo. I marveled at the results when I was done: I hadn’t seen every single nasty consequence aggregated all together that way before. Then I signed my name, attesting legally to the fact that yes, I had faithfully described my fragile state while somehow still dragging myself to the appointment. Go me.
In addition, the admins took my picture for some sort of ID I will need to get into the treatment area (?) and a preliminary, first-day parking pass for Steve. Beth Israel gives radiation patients free access to the parking garage – as I’ll be going there, five days a week, for five weeks. In Boston that could add up to major money, so this is a big savings as well as a kindness.
The consult with the doctor was (largely) a revisit of what to expect during radiation in terms of side effects. Her primary concern with me has to do with gastrointestinal distress: diarrhea, dehydration, and everything related to those problems. I’ll still be feeling the lingering side effects of chemo so we are betting on certain support meds giving me help.
I was relieved to see the Stargate-style scanner in the test room; I had put myself through some serious anxiety at the thought of going into another torpedo tube. The goal of this scan, though, is to design a bespoke radiation treatment through careful preliminary measurements. Somehow, the doctor is going to target or wrap radiation around very specific areas – in my case, different lymph nodes – while carefully avoiding internal organs, the spine, etc. as much as possible. Go her.
Two technicians helped me get onto the machine, lying face down on a hard contoured piece of body-length plastic. There’s a hollow at lower-belly level which they said was for my stomach. However, there was no such helpful allowance for my breasts. After about five minutes trying to stay still on that bumpy surface, I realized it’s custom-designed for cis-men. My knees, hipbones, shoulders, and ‘the girls’ all felt achy after getting squished against that plastic by gravity.
It was also uncomfortable, for me, to feel the technicians working on my back. It’s a PTSD thing from my childhood, after being grabbed and/or struck so often by someone I couldn’t see. There wasn’t any pain or physical discomfort: they were using the CT machine and felt-tipped pens to put registration marks on my back. I feel obliged to mention it, though, for other people who might get triggered. If that happens to you also, it helped me to remember the room was large, the machine was not restricting me, and the length of time they needed to do their work was pretty brief.
The final step in the process was getting tattooed. One of the techs put four small dots on my back: one at the top of my tailbone, one near the center of my back, and two others on my sides just above my hipbones. These reference points will help the radiologists line up the machine in just the right spot, so each session will go more quickly. The two spots on my sides felt like tiny little pinches, not painful in the least. The one at the center of my back stung a bit, and the one over my tailbone did feel like getting jabbed with a needle. The pain was brief, though. For frame of reference, I’d say it’s far more painful when someone accesses the port in my chest.
medicinal sausage 