Radiation Therapy - Days 1-3

Wednesday was the first day of my radiation "therapy". (I think that the word therapy is applied loosely in this context, but I digress.) I showed up a little late because I had a few things at work that were pressing and every time I had been to the hospital before I ended up waiting for a significant amount of time. Turns out that the radiation department runs almost like clockwork so they were really moving fast to get me in and out of there.

When I walked back into the room, I saw my nemesis--the mask--right away. I cringed. After getting positioned on the table, they locked down the mask and started to get everything set up. Right away I knew that this was not going to work. The problem is that I don't like to be completely and forcibly immobilized with a mask pressing over my face. It squishes my nose down and makes it hard to breathe. Why not breathe through my mouth? Well, I've got what they call a bite block that is in my mouth to push my tongue down so that is in the same position every time I'm shot with radiation. So that makes it hard to breathe out of my mouth as well.

The mask is made of a mesh-like material that is rock hard. They fit it to your face during the radiation simulation that I had a couple weeks prior. The mask starts out flexible and is stretched over your face until it hardens. Then they take a bunch of measurements, write all over your face and neck, and then take a bunch of pictures. Then the doctor looks everything over, gives them additional instructions, signs off on it, and then they do some more tinkering. The whole process takes about 45 minutes and is about the most unpleasant experience you can imagine. The only problem is that when they first stretched the mask over me, they forgot to insert the bite block in my mouth, so the mask partially hardened in a size too small for me. (The bite block holds your mouth open slightly, thus pushing your chin down.) They quickly pulled the mask off and put the bite block in and then replaced the mask before it had completely hardened. This left, as I mentioned before, the mask too small so that when I have the bite block in, my chin is pulling the mask downward against my forehead and nose, making it harder to breathe.

Anyway, fast-forwarding back to the first official day of treatment...they slip this mask over me and immediately I begin to panic. Like most people, I begin to breathe a lot faster when I panic and this is exactly what happened. Of course I can't talk, since I've got this bite block in my mouth (imagine yourself in the dentist's office when he asks you a question and expects you to answer when you've got your mouth full of about 4 appliances and his fingers--that's kind of how it is). Since I can't talk, I just start squirming to get their attention--they hate it when you squirm because that means they've got to readjust things. Anyway, the technicians pulled the mask off and asked me what was wrong. At this point, they gave me an inch and I fully intended to take a mile. "I can't breathe with that thing on," I said. "It just pushes down on my nose and is really painful. Basically, I can't forget that I have this thing on and that is the one thing I need to be able to do to make this thing successful." So they ended up cutting part of the mask around the nose out which made things MUCH better. They also allowed me to listen to my iPod so that at least I could have some music to make me feel like I was on a sandy beach in the Caribbean even though I was the farthest place from it. (Funny note here...when you lie down on this table, they have silly seascape portraits posted to the ceiling. Apparently, these things are supposed to help keep the patient calm but they forgot that we've got the stupid mask on and can't see much of anything...brilliant...but it was a good effort.)

So the first day of treatment was about 30 minutes long because they had to double check the settings of everything and make sure they weren't shooting radiation into my hip instead of into my neck. All in all, I think I did pretty well--certainly better than during the simulation. The next two days went even better--the second day was a little tough at one point but the third was a breeze. One of the techs said, "You're getting used to it!" Almost in a congratulatory tone. I responded that I didn't think I would ever get used to it--and as I think about it now, I don't think I ever want to get used to it. Never in my life do I want to look back at this experience and think, "Hey, that was normal."

I was under the impression that my chemotherapy would also begin the same day but they decided to start it up next Tuesday. In preparation for that, they gave me three prescriptions for anti-nausea medicine. The most common side effect from chemotherapy is severe nausea and vomiting. However, some people never suffer through it. The bottom line is that they don't know how your body will react.

If you are now like I was last week, then you don't really know how chemotherapy works. Well, first they hook you up to an IV and pump you full of fluids, then give you the chemo, and then give you more fluids. It's a six-hour-long procedure--yuck. The good news is that all the fluids are supposed to help reduce the number of side effects.

All of this isn't as bad as I make it sound. I tried to explain it with a little humor but maybe it sounded a little cynical/sarcastic. Oh well. What you should know is that I feel good so far. The bad side effects are yet to come and I'll know a LOT more this time next week about how my body will respond to the drugs. I've been exercising regularly and trying to build up my energy level while gaining weight as well. I've been more or less successful but there is still work to be done. The trick is focusing on the big picture. It helps to remember that there are a lot of people leading perfectly normal lives out there who have been through this already. Look at Lance Armstrong, for example...get cancer, beat cancer, fully recover, and then win a few Tours. Not bad for a dude who had cancer throughout his body.