Monday, March 28, 2011

Zip zap zip

My radiation simulation – a kind of dress rehearsal for radiation – involved five technicians hovering around my inert, topless body and taking turns poking and prodding me into position on the un-comfy metal table, while urging me to hold still and lay heavy. Their multicultural combo of accents, the many monitors and hulking high-tech equipment, and the general futuristic vibe made me feel as if I were guest starring on an episode of Star Trek.

I certainly have the hair-do for it.

At one point, a Russian man and a Chinese woman stood on each side of me, both scribbling on my chest with their special medical markers and reciting numbers that seemed nonsensical to me: 84, 23, 17 (I wanted to pipe up, “Hut!”). Now I felt as if I were a disputed Sino-Soviet border territory, perhaps Mongolia or Manchuria, being divvied up.

Simulation involved maintaining a fixed position for a good (or, rather, bad) 45 minutes.

“My neck hurts from tilting my head at this angle,” I complained.

“You need to keep it like that; we don’t want to accidentally irradiate your throat,” a technician said.

Talk about instant motivation to stay stock still. A crick in the neck or months on a feeding tube? I’ll go for Door Number 1.

They try to liven up the experience with Muzak and a Hallmark-worthy mural on the ceiling depicting a verdant nature scene in unnaturally bright colors. Someone with a sense of humor had decorated it with little stickers of monkeys , penguins and other assorted geographically incompatible critters cavorting through the fake woodlands. The radiation-delivery device -- a linear accelerator, which looks like a giant’s dinner plate mounted on a mechanical arm -- was also festooned with little stickers of animals and Disney characters.

The actual radiation session was a lot quicker; I was in the room for less than 15 minutes.

“Jump up; butt here, head here and boob out,” a friendly technician said, patting the metal table. Another one tucked a warm blanket around my lower half.

Once they arrange me to their satisfaction, the techs file out into their control room where they supervise the proceedings on closed-circuit monitors. It looks just like the live-TV control room I’m using to seeing on Academy Award broadcasts.

As I lie on the table, a mechanical arm swings the accelerator into different positions over me. When it’s actually zapping, it emits a high-pitched whine and a sign that says “X-ray in progress” lights up on the wall. The four different zaps take just a few minutes in total.

Including putting on the hospital gown, waiting to be called, getting prodded into position, getting zapped and getting re-dressed, each daily radiation session takes about 30 minutes. My standard night-time exhaustion is now kicking in earlier and earlier, and my chest area is starting to feel tender.

Summoning up the full power of my command of the English language, I would say that in comparison to chemotherapy, radiation sucks less.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Hair today, gone tomorrow

Limbo time.

The doctors gave me a hiatus to recover from chemo before starting radiation. I’m still wiped out and still have lots of medical appointments but am enjoying feeling slightly more normal. I don’t miss those weekly enforced Benadryl naps and grogginess.

My hair, she is gone, baby, gone. There were still cottony strands remaining even after five months of chemo, but I finally had Mark buzz it all off so the new hair will grow in all the same. Everyone says post-chemo hair comes in curly, so I’m placing my order now for adorable ringlets like Keri Russell in "Felicity."

Now all that’s left is perhaps five eyebrow hairs on the left and three on the right. Very, very few eyelashes either – not a pretty look at all. You know how one of the really unattractive things about vultures is their brooding, hooded eyes? Well, that’s a case in point of why eyelashes are a must-have accessory.

Chemo’s finale was anticlimactic. Mark and I brought in cookies to thank the nurses who’d been great throughout. But otherwise it was just Day Number 20 of having toxic substances pumped into my veins.

A couple of days after the last chemo, some women friends gathered to commemorate the rite of passage. This faithful village has been bringing me food, books and flowers; accompanying me to chemo; lending sympathetic ears; taking me out on walks; and just being there throughout. We ate good food, decorated prayer flags, and wore silly hats and wigs.

As I told them: “Some chemo patients expect their friends to shave their heads in solidarity; all I’m asking is that you wear a funny hat for a little while.” Actually it was amazing how the hats brought out different aspects of people’s personalities – a Nashville-style tumble of long auburn tresses turned one friend into a seductive vixen; a jaunty red fedora offset another’s face perfectly; a gentleman’s top hat brought out another friend’s debonair side. I wore a propeller beanie that Ben had sported in fifth grade, and gave the propeller a spin now and then to signal my giddy relief that chemo is over.

As a prelude to radiation, it was time for another mammogram. Even though it would be highly unusual to develop a new tumor right after all that chemo, I was a nervous wreck. It was my first mammogram since the one a year ago where they kept calling me back over and over again to take more images, and then eventually ushered me in to meet with the radiologist. When she said, “Unfortunately we found …” it seemed as if she lingered on every single one of the 17 or so syllables in “unfortunately,” leaving each one hanging in the air like little cartoon thought bubbles.

Adding to the PTSD, this mammogram was at the same location, a chic breast care center with plush terry robes, museum-quality art and comfy upholstered chairs. But all those upscale touches can’t camouflage the fact that at core it’s centered on a malevolent disease. I was the only bald woman in the Butterfly Waiting Room, and I wondered if the other women there, who glanced at me occasionally and then immediately looked away, were flinching at how I represented a stark reminder that they weren't there for mani-pedis.

Unlike normal “screening” mammograms, the ones for breast cancer patients are considered “diagnostic” and they give you results on the spot. Mariann, the technician, was competent and compassionate.

She returned a few minutes after taking the images and said: “Dr B. says everything looks absolutely normal.”

My whole body unclenched and air escaped from my lungs with a whoosh.

“Absolutely normal” -- that’s my goal from now on.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Off to see the wizard

Talk about playing the cancer card. There I was lined up with hundreds of people waiting to enter a hotel ballroom where a healer would gaze at us for 10 minutes, effecting various miraculous transformations on what ailed us. I got tired so I went to sit down while my pals Jan and Irene held our place.

Then Jan showed up at my side.

“People with special needs get in early!” she hissed.

I was a little slow to get it, but she was staring at me fixedly.

“Oh, you mean I have special needs,” I said. “I guess if I take off my hat, it’s obvious.”

To be fair, I was having a post-chemo day of feeling pretty darn crappy, and later turned out to have a stomach flu.

It’s my new super-power. With the hat on, I look like an ordinary middle-aged woman obsessed with staying warm. Whip it off, and suddenly I’m Sick Lady, an object of pity – and preferential treatment in this case.

So I did it. Jan and Irene hustled us to the front of the line and proclaimed to the gatekeeper: “Our friend has special needs.” And just like that we were entering.

Inside ushers directed us to the center of the very front row, where we’d be sure to catch an extra gaze. Around us were the other special needs folks, some with oxygen tanks, some with wheelchairs or canes.

Yup, another trip to Lourdes, New Age-style.

First came the pre-show warm up – meditative music from a guy on a guitar and a woman on a flute.

As the 300 or so other folks filed in, a pretty blonde woman wielding a microphone whispered “Sssshhhhhh” over and over, so there would be reverential quiet. She was wearing a kind of pink ruffled minidress, tight leggings and 6-inch stiletto heels with a complex arrangement of black straps affixing them to her feet. She also sported bookish glasses. The overall effect was Dominatrix Librarian.

She told us stories about the healer’s powers. “Sometimes people with cancer have visited the bathroom right afterwards and their tumor just miraculously left their body.”

I was confused. What about the bathroom would make a tumor do that?

“I don’t mean to get too graphic,” she apologized.

Oh, I get it now. The tumors were excreted in the toilet.

In all my extensive medical education on Wikipedia, I hadn’t learned about that possibility. Clearly, I need to study harder.

“Some of those people were doctors,” she said, just in case we were doubting Thomases.

She told us what it might be like to be in the presence of the healer. “Sometimes people see a golden light. Sometimes they get warm all over, or feel total bliss and acceptance.”

When the diminutive, long-haired man finally strode into the room and stood on a dais a few feet in front of me, I did feel a brief moment of exhilaration, but it might have been relief that we were getting the show on the road.

In fact, he did project tranquility. His glance traveled over the audience with calm dignity.

While I didn’t see a golden light or feel enveloped in bliss, I took the opportunity to take some deep breaths and practice feeling centered. Looking around me, I saw many people who seemed awe-struck.

After ten minutes, he climbed off the stand and exited stage right.

As we lined up to leave (no special-needs treatment on the way out), Jan whispered: “Do you want to go to the ladies room?”

“No, I’m okay,” I said.

Her eyes twinkled. “But don’t you want to go there to see if you, um, release your cancer?”

I couldn’t quite figure out what path it would have to take to travel from breast to elimination.

“No, no, I think I can skip it,” I said hastily. “Really I’m fine.”