My chemo experience includes sitting in a chair that looks like something you might test drive at a Brookstone store in the mall, complete with massage functions and heat. The minute I sit down, the staff gently covers me with a heated blanket. Volunteers come round to offer reading materials, snacks and drinks. While I sit enjoying the heated massage, I read an absorbing novel, like Ann Patchett's State of Wonder, for example, which takes me far away to a land without cancer, needles, chemicals, death (well, perhaps I could have picked a better example than a book about human subjects experimentation, but you get the point...). From an upper floor of the hospital I have a million dollar view of the Boston skyline through clear, enormous windows. Now and then someone comes by to check on me, or to switch the bags of medicine (I no longer think of it as poison - how can I?) It's a little like flying first class. You don't really want to be spending all this time cooped up in an airplane, but if you have to do it, it's nice be treated like a VIP.
By contrast, my radiation appointments are in the basement of the hospital, which has me thinking that the stuff they do in that department is so dangerous they need to keep it underground. The procedure requires that I strip down to my waist and put on one of those detestable hospital johnnies. I then sit in a waiting room, along with other ladies wearing ugly johnnies. This part of the ordeal brings back terrifying memories of mammograms. When my name is called, I walk into a dark room with a giant, spooky machine that looks like some kind of prehistoric monster. I lie down on a hard table that has a funny bump in it that my butt is supposed to rest against, but always seems to hit in just the wrong place. There are at least four technicians scurrying around the room officiously. One of them removes the johnny from the part of the body that is going to be radiated. They call out numbers to each other, they jerk my body around to line it up properly. They draw little blue marks all over my skin. They talk and move as if they are conducting a complex military maneuver. Then they all scatter from the room, leaving me to take the "heat" alone.
After the technicians are safe and sound in another room, I hear strange noises that alternate between those associated with the moving machine and those of the radiation beams shooting out, I guess. I'm too freaked out to watch what is going on. I lie there with my eyes closed knowing that parts of me are in the line of fire. I worry that the movement of my chest as I breath will result in collateral damage. I try not to breath. I am so oxygen deprived I feel the need to take a really deep breath but don't. I feel like passing out. And then it is over.
If I were to look on the bright side, however, I appreciate that the treatment itself takes only about 15 to 20 minutes most days. And, so far, I have no side effects, although I am told to expect burnt skin and fatigue.
Yesterday, my treatment was cancelled. The radiation machine was broken. Apparently getting your radiation machine fixed is about as easy as getting your refrigerator fixed. All day long the radiation technicians were calling me giving me updates on the repairs, the likelihood of getting replacement parts, the vagaries of the radiation machine repair people's schedule... In the end, they cancelled my appointment for that day.
The machine was still not fixed this morning. The radiation staff seemed stressed. At 7:00 AM, I got a call from one of the technicians telling me that the machine was still not fixed. I got the impression that it would be super dangerous if I were to miss another day. I started to panic and began thinking that I should look around for another radiation machine that worked. Before I got too far with that strategy, I got a call that the machine was operational, and I should come in. I sped into town, practically starved for my next dose of radiation. Shoot me up, monster machine.
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