First Week of Radiation Therapy Complete

Its Sunday evening and the house has quieted down. We had my two daughters, their husbands and five grandchildren over for supper tonight to celebrate Father's Day. It gets quite noisy in the house with the grand kids playing with Legos and Hot Wheels. I wouldn't change a moment of the joy of watching those children play. My wife cooked a pork butt roast in the pressure cooker and we had some terrific pulled pork sandwiches and fries for supper. Home cooking is so much better than eating out and besides, I have leftovers for lunch for the week now.

Back to business. This week was five days of radiation therapy at Oschner Hospital at 5 P.M. each day. We set this schedule up so that Terry can put in a full day's work before driving me to the hospital. We've got the trip down to about 1 hour and 10 minutes providing no unforeseen slowdowns of the traffic. Once I arrive the techs take me into the treatment room and have me lay on the table. They place a preformed cast of my head and arm under me and line me up with green lasers. Then there's about ten minutes of x-rays and adjustments to confirm that my arm is in exactly the correct position for treatment.

This is when the pain sets in. Not from the radiation but from the awkward position of my arm. Its stretched over my head as far as it will go and twisted into the correct position for optimum treatment. The treatment is done in at least five segments and I can't move for more than ten minutes. The machine swings around me with its focusing lens opening and closing at each position and dosing me with radiation until it finishes. Once the treatment is over the techs lower the table and tell me we're finished and I can go. That's easy for them to say. I have to reach over my head with my left hand, grab my right hand and pull it down until I can feel anything in it. The wife and I head out for home with a usual meal on the way and arrival at home about 8 P.M.



This picture is exactly like the machine in use at the hospital. The small x-ray machine in the upper right hand portion of the machine is the alignment x-ray used to obtain proper alignment of my arm. The large blue eye looking down is the treatment x-ray and does the necessary work.