Uncategorized

10:15A on Friday was my fifth treatment, but only my second one at the Proton Center. It seemed like I was just there. I was, I had been there at 5P yesterday. We arrived on time but had to wait about a half hour before I was able to slip into the mask (it’s too early for me to start disliking this mask, but I do…got to work on that). Can ...

Proton Therapy is serious business; in comparison to the Conventional Radiation experience it seems quite formidable.

The Proton Radiation Room is huge, the equipment is state of the art…it looks like something from “2001-A Space Odyssey”. The table I sit on moves in and out of a large cyclotron that delivers a pin-pointed beam that starts some three floors away. There is music playing…whatever you want; there’s no music in conventional radiation, not even ...

I have to hold very still. My head is laid on an “immobilizing device”, to the non-medical everyday man this looks like a piece of plastic that fits your head. Certain adjustments are made,…chin up, tilt this way, tilt that way, the technicians line up my previously made tattoos, a piece of surgical tape is stretched across my forehead to keep me…very still. The technicians leave the room and step behind a ...

After a late start…of course, Jon and I got up to to Boston about 2P…moved into the apartment, (that didn’t take long), and took the three block walk over to the hospital for my first radiation session at 3P. These first few sessions will be conventional radiation, not Proton (so no mask). I was wiped out afterwards, I’m sure not from the treatment but more from the day. We came back and ...

Meet Mr. Dubenschmeimer, so named by my 12 year old daughter Rachel. This tumor has been a presence in her life as long as she can remember, and I guess she felt it should have a name. Anyway, it sort of fits. It’s a serious name, without being so formidable that ...

Last Thursday was set-up day. The day started at 8:30A and ended around 4P…I didn’t do all that much and yet I was as exhausted as I might have been if I had spent the entire day running. Most of the day I found my self visualizing where else I could be at the moment, transferring my mind away from my body. During my CAT Scan (a cylindrical tube in which many x-rays take a picture of…well, in my case, ...