Radiation Girl

Radiation therapy officially started on Tuesday, July 2. I was introduced to the machine, called a linear accelerator (LINAC), on Monday. The LINAC doubles as a CT scan, so what they were doing on Monday was taking it through its paces with CT scans, to make sure everything was targeted right.

It's really quite an interesting technological process. After all the CT and PET scans I've had, the doctors have a good picture of my insides. A computer program processes all those images and determines the best angle and shape of the x-ray beams. The "dry run" on Monday was to make sure the computer did its job right.

This is the best image I could find of the LINAC. I lie on the table and the machine rotates around me, stopping at 8 locations (including below me) and zaps me maybe a dozen times from each location. When it's above me I can watch the lights that represent the x-ray beams change shape; then there's the buzz of the x-ray, followed by the lights changing shape, then another buzz, and so on. It takes about 15 minutes for the complete process.

The side effects will take a while to kick in, so for the moment I have no physical reaction. Some time in the second week my skin will start to redden, as if it were sunburned, and the other ill effects I've been warned of -- difficulty swallowing, perhaps nausea, and ever more fatigue.

Oh, in case you're wondering, I do have today off for the Fourth. Hereafter, it'll be Monday through Friday.

The medical practice has several offices, and the doctor I met with first, Dr. M, wasn't the usual doc for the Olympia site. Yesterday I met with the regularly-assigned doc, Dr. S. I'm sad to say that my perfect record of absolutely wonderful medical practitioners didn't hold for Dr. S. He's okay, nothing really wrong with him, but I just don't have the confidence in him that I've had with all the others. I've often been surprised at how carefully the other docs have read my medical records and all the tests, and seem to know all about me and my cancer when I meet with them for the first time. Not so with Dr. S, who thought I also had breast cancer. Then he opened up my records and read the part where the first PET scan showed "activity" in my upper right breast, but it turned out to be nothing. I did ask him about the PET scan I had last week, and was extremely pleased to learn that it shows no cancer anywhere. It still leaves the question of why I'm still showing cancer markers. I haven't seen Dr. K in a while, but I'll see him tomorrow and maybe I'll find out that the cancer markers are finally gone.

Speaking of seeing Dr. K tomorrow: Chemo starts up again. And here's the weird and sort of embarrassing admission. Dr. K told me some time ago that he was going to continue chemo when I started radiation. There are two pieces of information that I knew: 1) Chemo is two Fridays out of three; and 2) Radiation is five days a week.  Yet somehow I didn't put those two pieces of information together to come up with the knowledge that on two Fridays out of three I'll be getting BOTH forms of treatment. Duh. Tomorrow's schedule is chemo beginning at 9:30, including a visit with Dr. K, so I should finish up just it time to drive across town and have radiation.

Oh joy.