Didn't go as planned...

Just as the title says, today didn’t go quite as planned. When I got up this morning, I thought I would be going alone to my first radiation treatment. I was really glad when my old climbing partner, Alan, text me to find out what time I had to be at my appointment. It was nice to know that I didn’t have to be there by myself. When I got to my appointment, Christy had taken off work to surprise me by being there. I really have some great friends and a great wife.

When I was called in to the treatment room, I was taken into a large room with an automatic steel door. The walls were VERY thick. The machine takes up about half of the room and there is a table to lie on. The first thing the technicians had me do was take off my shirt and lie on the table so they could position me on the table the right way. After that, they left the room to do an x-ray. When they came back, they did some marking on my back then went out for another x-ray. After this, the nurses had to stop the treatment because they didn’t feel comfortable with my position on the table. The key to doing radiation therapy is that you have to be in the exact position every treatment session. With the close proximity of the tumor to my spine, the technicians want to make sure the high-doses of radiation don’t interfere with my spine. They didn’t feel that was possible with the way the CT people did the “mapping” for my treatment plan. With my doctor’s consent, they had me go back to the CT to get re-mapped.

So, I had to start the planning process all over again. We started out by doing a mold of the side of my head lying on the table so that my head will be in the same place every time. This thing looks like a small pillow that stinks really badly! They lay your head on it, and then it forms and hardens around your head. It even left an imprint of my ear in it. Then they gave me this thing that looks kind of like a bean bag. It’s a clear bag filled with white Styrofoam beads. I laid down on it then the technicians sucked all the air out of it. As they did this, the bag molded against my body and arms. Each day I’ll lay in this mold to make sure I’m in the same position during every treatment. All of this took almost 2 hours. They did the mold thing 4 times before it was right. By the time I got out of there, I was sore, and my back and arms were hurting.

Now we’re back to the waiting game. The doctor will have to look everything over to make a new treatment plan. They will call me with my new “first” appointment when everything is ready. I will let you all know more when I know something.

The After Glow

Today was the first day to meet with the radiation therapist.  The appointment went by really fast. It was a lot of paperwork. The doctor came in to have a look at the mass. He talked about what kind of plan we would have and said it would last for 5 to 6 weeks. I will have to be there every day except for weekends. I also found out that there will be some side effects. There is a chance that I will lose my hair. I have already told Christy if it starts to come out I’m just going to shave it all off. There will also be redness and feel like a sun burn. I won’t be able to be out in the sun or in extreme heat.  So after talking to the doctor one of the nurses came in to take me in to get a CT scan and do the mapping for the therapy. The guy kinda looked like a child molester; scary thing about that is the first thing he said when we got in the other room was take off your shirt. So joking aside they had me lay down on the table face down and he and the other female nurse positioned me into the position I will be in for every treatment. I am adding two pictures to this post to show everyone the large mass on my back. In the other picture you will be able to see where they drew all the lines on my back that is the mapping they did today.

After the mapping they did the CT scan. It only took about 5 minutes and I was out of there. It will take the doctor about 3 days to plan everything out on how my treatment will go, how long I will be in the machine, and how many weeks I will have treatment. So it will be next week before they call me to let me know when my treatments will start.

Mentally all of this has started to wear on me. I am at the beginning of all of this and have a long way to go. I have been very stressed and a little depressed this last week. I am trying really hard to stay positive but it’s hard to stay that way all the time. It would be nice if we could move all this along a little faster. Not have all the waiting from doctor appointment to doctor appointment. I am still not sleeping all that much. I am kinda surprised I am not jumping down people’s throats from lack of sleep.  

So I guess here in the next week or two I’ll be radioactive and begin to glow!