Had the radiation simulation yesterday, which sucked. Walked into the room and it’s all white with slightly dim lighting There’s this big ass machine with a platform/table under it. It has a big thing jutting out at the top above the table and two smaller things jutting out to the left and right of the table (I think both sides). They had me lay on a platform and posed me how I needed to be. They gave me a pillow case or sheet or something that went across my waste that I had to grab on each side with my hands keeping my arms slightly bent next to me. My head was looking up almost to the max it would with my neck extended with a little hard rubber support thing under my neck that didn’t do much. My legs were over a pillow thing to support my knees which was good but my heals had to stay together which was uncomfortable and how it had to be kinda put weight on my tail bone or whatever. They slid me around the table on the sheet I was laying on to position me under the thing above the table just right. Once I was in the right position they made a dotted line down the front of me with a purple marker. Had to lay in that awkward ass position for an hour and a half. By the end I could hardly stand it, my body was screaming (neck and tailbone mainly) at me to move but was able to stay in position basically perfectly until they were done ‘taking pictures’. I saw one as I was walking out and it looked like an x-ray but don’t know if that’s the only kind they were taking or what. Anyway, while I was laying there they’d all leave the room, a light on the wall would blink, a thing in a closet would kerchunk then the thing that was above the table would make a few ticking noises. Either that would happen again or they’d all come back in to slide new template things onto the thing above the table, or rotate the whole thing so the thing that was above the table is now to my side or underneath me. The thing was a damn transformer. the whole piece spun left and right, at least one of the things jutting out on the right or left came out and was semi-articulated and came down over over me to take some other kind of picture probably. Something that was on the bottom of it ended up in front of my face like a foot away at one point when the thing that was above me was under me instead.
Start radiation on Monday. Have to be there at 8am in Skokie. which is 30-45 mins away. Treatment takes 10-20 mins he said. They said they’d let me know when my afternoon appointment is but it has to be at least 6 hours apart. He said probably just be 2pm. I have to get the dressing changed for my new catheter as well on Monday at 10:30am, that’s at Highland Park which is on the way between Skokie and home. I could have done it at Evanston but Highland Park is smaller, so I know the people there (and have been going there for a year and a half too). It’s also much less of a pain for parking and getting to where I need to be. It’s kind of a walk from the main entrance to the Kellog center at Evanston, where as it’s like 6 steps tops from the door in Highland Park. Also, parking is way easier and closer to the door at Highland Park and if I wanted they have free valet (it’s $5 at Evanston). So ya, there’s no reason to go to Evanston for that at all basically.
Never got a response from the doctor about my new catheter about anything I ask. Not sure what the deal is with that but whatever I guess. Maybe they expected me to go back to Evanston (where they are) for dressing change and they’d talk to me then but I’m not doing that, like I said going to Highland Park for those.
I don’t know whether there should be aliens or a photographer in that room. At the beginning it sounds like an alien autopsy report, then later sounds like professional photo shoot, then back to sounding like an alien autopsy. Still later it sounded like the CIA had developed some new alternative to waterboarding. Glad they said the procedure is 20 minutes. (probably means 40) Hopefully their aim is precise (but thourough) and you won’t feel too ill to bother with the catheter afterwards. Stay strong man….
Rack him!
From what they were saying, it seems like the worse side effects are because they can’t be 100% precise when they do the radiation and only hit lymph nodes, so it may hit my stomach a little to maybe create nausea, hit my intestines to maybe create diarrhea, can’t hit only the lymph nodes in my neck and not my throat/wind pipe so will probably give me a soar throat. They gave me this special mouth wash shit because mouth soars are a problem apparently in addition to the soar throat. They’ve said that by the second or third week I may only be able to eat liquid. One time they said something about sometimes people can’t even swallow so they have to go in to get a hydrated via IV. So ya, hoping it doesn’t get that bad, kinda don’t expect it to but we’ll see.