So this is how I spent Friday afternoon. I had to return to the radiation oncologist’s office to have a mold made for my upcoming treatments. It looks like a cross between the Jason mask and medieval chainmail a la the cover of Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf (incidentally, another text I teach my seniors. Here’s hoping I only have to fight this monster once).
Before we began, the radiation technician asked if I was claustrophobic. I told her I didn’t think so, but then again, I’d never done anything like this before. She proceeded to lay me down on the narrow table they use for CT scans and MRIs, lock my wrists in a hold, align my body with a laser overhead, and drape this dripping hot wax/plastic/rubber sheet over my head and shoulders. Panic didn’t set in until they placed a large foam tongue depressor in my mouth and fastened the mask to the table. I may not be claustrophobic, but I am HUMAN, and nothing about the situation felt like a human should be in it, let alone for twenty minutes.
I could only breathe through my nose, had difficulty swallowing, and would compare the experience to that of being in a coffin or straightjacket. The tech then ran me through a CT “simulator” which took images that my doctor will use to develop my radiation plan (i.e. where, precisely, the beam will be targeted). I asked them to tell me when it had been five minutes, ten minutes, etc., which helped assuage my anxiety ever so slightly. Somehow, I got through it. As soon as I was out of the contraption and sat up, tears began streaming down my cheeks. Was it relief? Sadness that I’m having to go through this at all? A number of reasons seem, to me, altogether plausible, but the tech looked puzzled. “I’m going to ask the doctor to get you a prescription for Ativan,” she concluded.
I know it’s just another day at work for them, but for patients going through this for the first time, it’s like being deposited on another planet with alien customs and an alien tongue. Someone else’s surprise that you’re having trouble adapting, rapidly, to a cancer diagnosis and its treatment is one of the harder things I’ve had to deal with thus far (and, thankfully, I haven’t encountered it much). Maybe I’ll ask the doctor to get her a prescription for Sympathan.
Well, then 