Thursday, December 13, 2012

Radiation Day 1


Today begins my 10 treatments of radiation therapy to get rid of the mass in the lymph nodes in my neck.  I was a bit nervous for today, but excited to get started.  I made it through having the mask on, it was longer than expected as they had to do some xrays first to double check the alignments.  So I went to my happy place and time flew.  Today's treatment went off without a hitch.  I had two awesome techs that made it that much easier.   My first question was once I get locked in the mask, could I break away from the table if I panicked.  Yeah, I wasn't thrilled cause they said not really, but with a lot of force.   So that basically means no.  They assured me they would be watching the cameras and all I had to do was move my hands, and they would stop it all and come in.  I did not need to exercise that option.  Whooooo hooooo for me.

So the machine starts to spin around me, they announce over the speakers that they are taking some X-rays, I wondered what this machine really did.  I couldn't see much, but I heard the movement and sounds.  With each spin I wondered what it was doing, and when would it start.  While I thought I had it all figured out, I never knew when it started. And was shocked when they came in to start unlocking my mask.  It hasn't really bothered me today, looking forward to getting number two behind me, and the big week next week.  So onward we go.  Here are a couple photos I snapped today.  :)



I think it is called a linear accelerator
Special marks to pinpoint

Complicated and fan


This video shows what this linear accelerator does for the pinpointing the radiation therapy.  Pretty cool!!




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