Treatment - Later Days
(BECAUSE, APPARENTLY, CANCER ISN'T SCARY ENOUGH)
Want to see something mild to moderately horrifying? For 38 days, for almost an hour each Monday through Friday, I was the Man in the Mesh Mask. Mesh, you say? Wasn't it an Iron Mask? Not for me, no.
I also didn't have a twin brother and Leonardo DiCaprio wasn't featured during that month+ of torture. When my good looks failed me, I could've used him to bump up the level of eye candy.
I also didn't have a twin brother and Leonardo DiCaprio wasn't featured during that month+ of torture. When my good looks failed me, I could've used him to bump up the level of eye candy.
For lack of an image of me specifically going through radiation, here's a stock image that pinged on a Google search. For those not in the know -- and let us hope that you never need to join those that are in the know -- radiation therapy is a tricky process. Like chemotherapy, it is an imperfect method that is still making advancements. Also like chemo, at least when I had my treatment done in the summer of '05, radiation was an imperfect method because it targeted everything in the general area. Chemo doesn't just kill cancer cells, it kills ALL your cells indiscriminately.
Radiation does (or did) the same thing. They try to pinpoint it as much as possible, but you're still being zapped with what basically amounts to a giant laser.
Go back and read that last line. Zapped with a laser. Pause and let the image simmer for a few seconds.
What's that? You want to know how they pinpoint it? The mask up there. The radiation technicians mold it to your face, and once you settle on the table, the mask is fitted over your head and locked in place.
Radiation does (or did) the same thing. They try to pinpoint it as much as possible, but you're still being zapped with what basically amounts to a giant laser.
Go back and read that last line. Zapped with a laser. Pause and let the image simmer for a few seconds.
What's that? You want to know how they pinpoint it? The mask up there. The radiation technicians mold it to your face, and once you settle on the table, the mask is fitted over your head and locked in place.
Now you might say to yourself, "Surely that can't be as bad as it looks," but you have to admit, it looks kind of like some medieval torture method, especially when you take into consideration the constant struggle with nausea. If you have to puke in that thing, it's going to be painful. The first time they bolted me down, stepped out of the room, and shut that giant steel door to protect themselves from accidental doses of radiation, I prayed the Zombie Apocalypse didn't happen.
If everyone suddenly died outside of that door, if WWIII started and I was left unscathed in my radiation-proof bomb shelter, would I be able to blindly undo the mask? Because among the hope that I'd get some kind of bitchin' ass super power, those were the things that worried me during radiation. |
Like so.
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(On a side note, how not-satisfied are you
when you get X-Rays and that tiny little steel vest, but the nurse steps behind a seven-foot thick wall of concrete? You're supposed to believe everything is going to be okay!? Radiation was a little like that.) |