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. I also didn't have a twin brother, and my room number in the hospital was 595, not 64389000.
Not for me. I also didn't have a twin brother, and my room number in the hospital was 595, not 64389000.
For lack of an image of me 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. Like chemo, at least when I had my treatment done in the summer of '05, radiation is an imperfect method because it targets 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. Pause and let the image simmer for a few seconds.
Zapped by a giant laser.
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, they place the mask over your head and lock it 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. Pause and let the image simmer for a few seconds.
Zapped by a giant laser.
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, they place the mask over your head and lock it in place.
Like so.
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 a torture method. 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.
(On a side note, how not-satisfied are you when you get X-Rays and have a little steel vest, but the nurse steps behind a five-foot thick wall of concrete? Radiation was a little like that.)
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.
(On a side note, how not-satisfied are you when you get X-Rays and have a little steel vest, but the nurse steps behind a five-foot thick wall of concrete? Radiation was a little like that.)
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.
If laughter is the best medicine, wtf is medicine? #twitterive
— Dave Lucas (@sellar_door) February 22, 2012