A Brief History of Radiation Therapy... so far

A long time ago, when I was shopping for a wedding dress for a wedding that was never going to happen,  the sales-woman told me that the whole concept of a wedding... a marriage... didn't really become real for a girl until she was trying on wedding dresses.  She added that it became real for a guy when he laid down a few thousand dollars for a ring.  I know it became real for my fiancee's mom when she saw the invitations printed (she reportedly burst into tears).  I think the wedding became real for my mom when I admitted that I had no idea what to do about flowers and I asked for her help and advice.

It turned out that wedding never truly became real for anyone because a couple of weeks later, I discovered that the dirty bastard was cheating on me and I dumped his ass.

Anyway, my point is, sometimes, something has to happen for a while before it really happens... before it actually starts leaving its footprints on your life.

Like cancer, MY cancer.

I don't think it was really happening for me until radiation therapy commenced, and suddenly I was a cancer patient... for real, not just theoretically. Up until then, I knew that I had a "form" of lymphoma, and I knew that I was going to have to go to radiation therapy.  But I felt fine, I LOOKED fine, except for a few small blemishes on my face and neck, I was healthy.

Sure, I did all the requisite crying and freaking out the morning I got the call from my doctor.  But soon after, I was smiling again, joking, making light of the whole situation and generally thinking that I was hot shit.  I would tell friends that I had cancer and they would gasp and I would deliver my terribly clever punch-line:  "Oh, it's okay... it's only a little cancer." My favorite anecdote about myself was this: "CLEARLY, Cancer has no idea who he's fucking with!"

Yay... big, bad-ass high-five to me.

Later, when my radiation oncologist told me that I was going to have 15 radiation treatments, one every weekday for three weeks, I shrugged him off and thumbed my smart little nose at the concept.  How hard could 15 treatments be?

I was all but certain the whole ordeal was going to be a day at the beach, literally.  I was under the distinct impression that radiation was going to be about as traumatic as going to a tanning salon everyday for three weeks.  (Of course, I've never actually BEEN to a tanning salon...)  I would still go to work, go to my second job, go to movies, go to my aerial arts circus classes and in less than a month, this whole "cancer" thing would be a very minor, momentary blip on an otherwise clear radar.  Everyone would be so marvelously impressed that I handled it all so well, and I would secretly think that it actually wasn't that big of a deal.

Then radiation actually happened.

Or rather, then cancer actually happened, because I don't think cancer... at least MY cancer... it didn't become real until we were treating it.  And THAT'S when cancer got mean.

-T-MINUS 1 WEEK-

I go into the radiation oncology unit so my doctor can do all of his "blocking out", which is to say, he's planning how all this is going to work and aiming the radiation "beam" (or whatever the hell you call it) at all the places on my body where the cancer lesions have appeared.  Basically, I've got to have radiation everywhere from my nipple-line to my hairline.  They're going to block my eyes, brows and lips with lead shields so I won't lose my eye-brows, eye-lashes and my lips won't chap.... Oh, and also so I don't lose my vision... which is also important.

This whole fiasco ends up being spread out into 2 appointments because it's taking so much time to figure out my "fields".  I am supposed to start with actual treatments by the end of the second day, but the hospital staff and my doctor decide that it's not convenient for them, and they opt to delay my treatment for a week... you know... because it's all about them.

-DAY 1-

It's the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.
I have been on shift since 8 a.m.  Monday morning.  I have been lucky, not much has really happened.  As a deputy medical examiner, my days are either filled with pain and carnage, or they're filled with video games and working out at the gym.  I'm on call so there's no knowing what's going to happen, or NOT going to happen.

At 7 a.m. the pager goes off.  I am called to a gun-shot wound-to-the-head suicide.  I could call my co-worker and ask him to take the call.  This co-worker is going to be covering for me while I go to my 1st radiation appointment and he told me that if a call rolls in the morning of my appointment, he'll gladly take it for me. I decide against calling him.  I figure my appointment is at 11 a.m. and 4 hours should be more than enough time to get a suicide squared away.

When I get to the home, the dead guy's family is completely out of control.  The guy's wife is screaming and the 17-year-old son who found his father's body in the garage... well... he's looking dazed- a bit haunted already.  For reasons I cannot quite understand, I am unable to work my typical "calm down" mojo.  I try to use some of my stock phrases- things about how it's no one's fault, the best thing they can do is focus on one task at a time... blah, blah, blah.  But I am off my game and I can feel it.  I'm not really thinking about this family's pain.  I'm thinking about how I'm about to be laying on a table in just a few hours as strangers shoot radiation at me in the name of modern medicine.

The dead guy is a mess.  His head, everything above the level of his cheek-bones, is completely gone.  Brains and blood everywhere.  His firearm was a hunting rifle and when he pulled the trigger, so much force was discharged into his cranium that there are pieces of his skull embedded in the ceiling and walls.  Some chunks even blew holes in the garage door.

As I go to leave, the son asks me if the holes in the garage may have been from other shots being fired.  I worry that the son might start lobbying to have his father's death investigated as a homicide, so I explain to him, as blandly as I possibly can, that no, those holes aren't from other gun-shots.  They're from... debris.

He gets it.

I barely make it home in time to jump into my car and race to the hospital where the doctors and nurses spend the next 5 hours arranging me on the table, drawing on me with markers, shooting radiation and arranging me again.  I'm topless the whole time and people keep touching me- not in a weird way... but they're still touching me.  When they're finished, I look like one of those cow diagrams, detailing where to find the different cuts of meat.  I think I may serve a fillet of me for Thanksgiving.

By the time it's over, I feel strangely detached.  Like I'm standing beside myself, watching it all happen... or like I'm a disembodied spirit who's drifted out of her mortal vehicle.  I don't feel like i belong to myself anymore.  My body is an old, rusted out tin-can and I don't feel.... familiar with it.  Its a worn out shoe, a sock I left on the floor...

I don't feel up to taking back the rest of my shift after the appointment.  I think maybe I'm not in a good place to be taking care of other people's crises right now.

-DAY 2

It's the day before Thanksgiving.  I still feel fairly confident that this will all be a simple little field-trip into the cancer zoo.  I'm fine.

-DAY 3

It is now the day after Thanksgiving.  I'm already showing signs of radiation burn on my face.  The rash that has characterized my cancer has flared up in response to the treatment.  My cancer is pissed.   It's not letting go without a fight.  I don't feel good anymore.  I'm scared.  What if this is happening because they're doing something wrong?  What if I don't actually have cancer?  What if my lesions have been misdiagnosed again? (it's not an unreasonable concern- my lesions were misdiagnosed for 5 years prior to this whole cancer thing) What if I'm going through radiation for nothing?

I'm panicky and irritable.  And I have a wicked carb hangover from Thanksgiving.

Over the weekend, I dread taking my shift on Sunday.  I ask my co-worker to cover the first 12 hours of my shift and I should be fine by Sunday night... I just need a bit of time to rest and calm down.

I tell my very loving and considerate mother-in-law that she should probably go home to Arizona- she has come out to provide moral support and love during this time, but I feel myself starting to lose grip on my happy-go-lucky facade.  I'm going to be turning into a raging bitch in the very near future and I don't want her to see me go nuclear.  She leaves without hurt feelings- maybe she senses what's coming, too.

When the time rolls around for me to take my shift, I make it halfway through shift change and I burst into tears.  I tell Henry, my co-worker, that I think I may need to take medical leave from work after all.

He agrees with me.  Maybe he senses what's coming, too.

-DAY 4-

It is Monday, and I spend a little too much time on the radiation table asking my doctor if he's absolutely SURE I have cancer.  I can't help it, my condition has been called everything from rosacea to a gluten allergy.... are we certain this time?

I sound crazy... I can hear myself sounding crazy.

My doctor seems baffled that I would suspect that this was all a big mistake.  He tells me that if I want to STOP radiation, I can do that.  But the tests that were done were gene tests... as in they were looking at my cellular DNA.... soooooo...

I stay for my radiation treatment.  The last thing I want to do is start over.

When I get home there's an email from my boss, stating that he understands I'm taking medical leave now and he wants me to come in to the office to talk to him about it and about getting my shifts covered.

I feel compelled to point out to him that all of my medical leave paperwork was filled out, filed and approved weeks ago.  I took care of all that just to be on the safe side... and my boss knows that.  Furthermore, my co-workers have been extremely vocal about being available to cover as many shifts as I need to miss.  My boss also knows THAT.  In fact, the entire goddamned office has known for a MONTH that I'm getting radiation treatments for cancer and that I may be going on leave.   I have no clue why he believes that telling me to come into work is in any way appropriate.

I reply with a brief email that reminds him that my medical leave and my shifts are already covered and there's no reason for me to come to the office to discuss medical leave while I'm on fucking medical leave.  

Of course, I left the expletive out, and I also resisted the urge to tell him that I was on medical leave... as in LEAVE me alone.

-Day 5-

My face still looks fucked up.  It kind of looks like it wants to get better, but it keeps getting assaulted with radiation, so it can't.

My boss sends me an email, telling me that my co-workers have agreed to cover my shifts (which I already knew.  In person and individually they all said they would.)  The tone of the email indicates that my boss seems to think that their help in this matter is nothing less than a miracle .  He informs me that I should "feel very blessed."

I want to punch that insensitive douche-bag in the throat.

On the one hand, yes.  I do have amazing colleagues.  We have always covered for each other, no questions asked.  We did this for one another long before this moron of a supervisor was given management over our medical examiner program.

On the other hand.... is he fucking kidding me?  I should feel "Blessed"?

I resist the urge to tell him that, strangely, I don't feel particularly lucky.  Funny how fucking cancer can do that to you.

Idiot.

-Day 6-

The hospital calls me to tell me that there has been an oversight and I can't come in for my appointment that day... meaning I get a day off from radiation... meaning that there will be an extra day tacked on to the end of my treatment instead... so I still get 15 treatments.

Again, I don't feel particularly lucky.  But all the same, I heat up a bottle of Sake and get nice and buzzed before going to see the new Hunger Games movie.  My friend asks me if I am allowed to drink while I'm getting radiation.  I tell her I don't give a damn, then I spend the rest of the night yelling "YOLO!" at inopportune moments

-Day 6 again-

I notice that things are staring to taste funny.  This is a side effect I was warned about.

I also decide that Facebook is possibly the most depressing thing in the world.  It's full of people who are proudly displaying pictures of their wonderful, healthy lives that are all going great.  Everyone is going on trips and buying houses! They're all having drinks at parties or giving birth to babies... meanwhile, I'm strapped to a table with strangers firing radiation at my head.

Then again, I think that my face is actually starting to look a little bit better... until I see a friend of mine at the gym... she gasps when she sees me and says, "Oh dear!  Your face!"

I stop thinking that my face is actually starting to look a little bit better.

-Day 7-

My doctor asks me about any fatigue and I'm not sure what to say.  Physically, I feel okay... but mentally and emotionally I'm in hell.  But the last thing I want to do is tell him something that would mean a lengthy, mandatory talk with a counselor who would sit across from me with a thoughtfully mauve expression on their face and ask me to describe the hell in which I currently reside.

Instead I tell him I'm having trouble sleeping... which is true, technically.

As I leave, one of the nurse tells me that I'm halfway done.  I know she means to be encouraging... but instead I feel a terrible sense of dread.  Another 8 treatments... dear sweet CHRIST!



I don't really know what to say.

Another 2 weeks of this shit.  I haven't come to any earth shattering conclusions, I haven't seen God or come to any deeper understandings.  I see happy, bald cancer patients in photos at the hospital and on-line.  They're smiling as if they are somehow galvanized.  They're holding signs that say hopeful, spiritual things.  But I feel awful, quite frankly.  I itch, I can't taste chocolate and I'm not nearly as tough as I thought I would be.... as I hoped and believed I would be.  I guess I'm just writing this because I know it will be over.... and other problems will come... and I can look back at this experience and remember how I believed it would never end.

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