High Beams On

After a traffic tieup that made me 15 minutes late, I made it in for the first treatment. The staff was waiting for me, and I was obviously their last appointment of the day. All told, the treatment took about 10 minutes. Basically, it's just take off my shirt, lay on the table, get positioned in the mold, and then four quick (30 second) bursts of high-energy X-rays from four different angles. My total dosage of radiation is 200 rads (radiation units) per treatment, which is considered low level. Then it's sit up, toss the gown, put on my shirt and see you tomorrow.

They'll be changing my appointment time over the next few days as some earlier slots open up, meaning as other patients finish their course of radiation therapy. Tomorrow I'll be in at 4 pm, and Friday is supposed to be around 1 pm. On Monday, they'll move me up to 9 am, which is more preferable to me from a work standpoint. No more slugging my way through unpredictable rush hour traffic to make appointments, but rather doing a shorter dash from home in the morning on back roads, then heading off to work after rush hour is largely over.

So the first offensive move in the taming of this lump has occured. It feels good to be taking steps against it rather than waiting for the time to come to begin dealing with it. I'm far more comfortable being proactive and doing something to the tumor than I am waiting around for it to do more stuff to me. It's my turn behind the wheel, and I'm going to be driving with my high beams on, courtesy of the radiation staff.