Radiation TherapyBefore starting the radiation therapy portion of my cancer treatments, they had to figure out where exactly to zap me. This involved the following torture sequence:
I had to wear the monster mask they created for me during each of the twenty treatments in the first round of radiation. The mask kept my head locked in a position so it wouldn’t get zapped by the radiation beams directed at my neck. I understood its purpose, but I really hated wearing it. It was incredibly uncomfortable, I couldn’t see out of it, and it made it difficult to breathe. And so the first round of radiation therapy began. Every morning for twenty days…then round two…every morning for another twenty days. The treatments themselves only took about 15 minutes each, though some were longer. The worst part about the radiation therapy wasn’t the treatments – it was the side effects. Liquid Diet Near the end of the first round of radiation, my throat started swelling from the radiation beams hitting it. In order to swallow food, I had to take tiny bites and chew it up really well. About a week after my throat started to swell, I had a little episode with a Quizno’s sandwich. Apparently, I hadn’t taken a small enough bite of the sandwich, and the darn thing got stuck in my throat. This caused me to start freaking out because I couldn’t breathe. I ran out of Quizno’s into the parking lot and managed to expel the sandwich onto the pavement. I will withhold any more details because they are rather gruesome. In any event, this scared me so much that I started crying hysterically and called my nurse coordinator. I love that woman – she is so calm and always knows the right things to say. She got me settled down and told me to come to the hospital. They did some tests to make sure I hadn’t done any major damage to my throat and then sent me home with strict instructions to consume only liquids for the next two weeks. Yea! An excuse to eat lots of ice cream! Happy days! These are the first thoughts that ran through my head. By the end of the fourth day, I was so tired of ice cream, soup, pudding, and jello that I considered fasting for the remainder of the two weeks. My Last Cancer Treament I had this notion in my head that when I walked out of my last cancer treatment, all of the doctors and nurses would be cheering and confetti and balloons would rain down on me. Music would be playing, and I would dance out of that hospital, never to return again. It wasn’t quite like that. I don’t think anyone in the radiation therapy center even knew it was my last day of cancer treatments when I walked out of there on October 25, 2006. But I knew that I was done, and I danced (once I got into my car) and sang (to Madonna on the radio) and celebrated (by treating myself to a grande no-whip non-fat caramel latte from Starbucks). That was a truly happy day.
Continue to Part V - Remission
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