I’m emerging from post-radiation sludge one week after my second series of treatments. The after affects of radiation, tapering off narcotic pain medication, and post-treatment letdown came together in a noxious brew that my body is struggling to clean up.  It is easy for me to be optimistic when I feeling well and impossible when I feel like crap.

I just re-read my last entry and saw that it ended with a cliff hanger.  I was sent to the hospital right after I had the MRI because the radiologists thought they saw signs of infection where the balloons had been removed. Turns out it was a scary false alarm.  I had a bunch of tests run and had to spend the night in a too familiar hospital room having my vital signs monitored. Everything was within normal range and they let me go home. This experience was an unnecessary reminder of how quickly life can change.  The next day I enjoyed attending a reunion with my former co-workers from the Apple Library, relieved that my Halloween costume would not be a hospital gown.

My five sessions of electron beam radiation began a few days later in a storage room in the basement of an old teaching hospital. I’ve come to think of it as a journey to an underworld. My trip began waiting at the elevator bank. When the white up arrow lit above an open door, many crowded in. When the red down arrow glowed, my companion and I were often the only ones to enter.  Once down, there were two long hallways, one lined with unused hospital beds, and the other empty. Both led eventually to the waiting room for radiation oncology but but I often found myself disoriented especially on the way out.

My radiation technician was gentle and calm, he told me I was the only patient scheduled for the electron radiation machine. He ushered me into a cement floored room that looked like it was rarely used. There was a narrow bench where I was to lie face down with my hands clasped above my head. Luckily, the treatments themselves lasted only 45
seconds. This was shallow mop-up radiation designed to kill off and sarcoma cells that may have been lurking in the drainage or incision sites.

The machine itself looked like it was manufactured in the 60’s; a big, round, camera-like thing stationed above the bench.  Along the walls of the room was a hodge-podge of stuff: lenses of various sizes scattered on a table with a handwritten note that read ‘clean area’
and a magazine picture of Einstein on a bicycle pinned to the wall above it, some sort of wagon stuffed with what looked like children’s Halloween costumes, a tall metal framed cart with white cloth straps suspended down the middle ghost-like.  After my second-to-last radiation treatment I asked the technician about the cart.

“Oh, that was used for people who were receiving full-body radiation treatment.  The patient would stand on the platform and hold onto the handles on either side, and the harness was strapped on to keep them from falling if they fainted during treatment. We don’t use it anymore, with the newer machines people are able to lie down.”

I didn’t ask him what diseases they treat with whole body radiation. It sounds like a procedure that should be reserved for one of the lower circles of hell.

The kindness of the technicians and the picture of Einstein got me though the second round OK. It also helped to get a spontaneous hug from my radiation oncologist when I saw him.  The aftermath of treatment was a visit to a different sort of underworld, one where I lay low and all the skeletons in my closets came to visit me.

I’m so relieved to be starting to feel better. A fine friend came over and cooked some chicken soup for me last night. Today, I’m looking at cookbooks and noticing that food smells good again. I don’t have to visit the oncologist and talk about further treatment decisions until mid-December. Right now, I don’t want to see any doctors ever again.
I’ve been reading a book of essays by Barry Lopez, ‘Crossing Open Ground’. He writes wonderfully about humans and wilderness. I imagine I’m with him watching white geese at Tule Lake or on a river trip through the Grand Canyon. I look forward to future hikes along my favorite trails at Pt. Reyes. For now, I think I’ll have another bowl of soup.