At Memorial Sloan Kettering, when you complete a course of radiation treatment you're encouraged to ring a bell in the radiation oncology hallway to celebrate. So yesterday I finished my 15 days of radiation, and rang the bell. We have a video, but I haven't figured out yet how to post it here and get it to play, so in the meantime here are two still photos: the top one is of me and the bell (which by the way is nice and loud when you give that rope a good tug), and the bottom one is of a celebratory cupcake, shared with Teresa, the photographer, a little later yesterday afternoon.
As for the treatment itself, it's superbly high-tech and as beams of radiation fly through you -- hopefully stopping to destroy your tumors -- you don't feel a thing. My main concern as the treatments took place was to stay as still as possible, while breathing just as instructed, none of which is as easy as it might sound.
Your body does know that something is happening, however. I'm more tired than usual now, and this may continue for a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, the bottom of my right foot is a bit painful; this particular symptom may not be due to the radiation, though, but rather to the accompanying chemotherapy pills, Xeloda (also known as capecitabine), which softened the tumors up for the radiation. These and related symptoms aren't negligible, but they're certainly not very bad either -- especially not if what I get in return is the destruction of all my active tumors. We'll know if that's what's happened in a couple of months when I get my next scan.
Incidentally, the next scan isn't actually scheduled yet. The reason isn't a scheduling problem, but some kind of insurance issue -- again. I'm guessing that this one is the result, somehow, of my having switched insurers in the middle of the radiation treatment, and I'm assuming that it will be resolved soon and simply -- I hope that's right!
One last note from the radiation process, and from the aging process: when I chose music that would play during my treatment, the young radiation staff person I discussed this with had never heard of Linda Ronstadt or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. I hadn't heard of some of the music she liked either, but that really only confirmed how dated my musical tastes have become. Fortunately she had a relative who liked Bob Seger, so we were able to find some common ground!
But when I was her age I'd heard of Fats Waller and Peggy Lee and Glenn Miller. From which I conclude: the Humanities are dying.
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