Ok...so you try finding a funny radiotherapy photo!
Well, what else do I do with the seventh consecutive night of insomnia, but write my blog. You’d think that 3-4 hours total per day in batches of minutes rather than hours wouldn’t be enough, but I’m still here. zzzzzzzzzzz. It’s the drugs of course but at 4.30 in the morning I should be asleep or at least flying somewhere in a past life. So here I am racking my brain to find a theme to rant about, other than the obvious health issues (pauses and sighs at the computer with writers’ blog block…)
Subjects that spring to mind:
The Wrong Cruise… Radiotherapy for Beginners…University Fees…
There must be something about me that gives the impression I’m either tough or stupid. I must have a sign around my neck to medics that says ‘he’ll be up for it!’ And so it is that I have student nurses constantly practicing their needle skills on my flesh as I feign nonchalance, cracking jokes. Needles are always involved with treatments with the exception of a trial I have just completed which compliments the cancer therapies with either reflexology or holistic massage. I was selected to be massaged for a series of four therapies (such a hard life). Actually, it was more like three since my lady masseur did no more than put her hands on me (with my lack of sleep) and I passed out into a deep and tranquil sleep. Snoring away I had to be woken to turn over, and again at the end. Ahhh!
For those of you who have never experienced a good massage then you must go. Anyone going to the far east…take care! However, true to form I have drifted off subject….
Famously on the front cover of the glossy Royal Marsden Magazine is Dr Koo is grinning with pride and pleasure at having secured a state of the art Radiotherapy machine. Now I always take it for granted that you know what all this technical equipment does. In this case, the radioactivity is shot at you from a choice of angles and can be controlled much more precisely by accounting for any miniscule body movement such as breathing (usually an option taken by patients). Always at this point I think of the laser beam in James Bond’s Goldfinger, edging toward the imminent dicing of limbs, combined with the instruction as ever to lay absolutely still (if not already bolted to the treatment table). Digressing slightly I last heard that statement from the anaesthetist fitting an epidural to a writhing Michelle during her birth to Daniel and then telling me if he missed she could be paralysed. OK, I’m focused! As if birth wasn’t traumatic enough for the husband!!
Oh, and why, when I can swim the 25metre length of a pool holding my breath comfortably, do I feel pressured in a CT Scanner when told to ‘breath in and hold your breath’, for no more than ten seconds…the pressure! Anyhow, having only just had a second blast or two of the fun radioactive stuff a few weeks earlier in my head after my last ‘stupid phase’ (see last blog) I was co-opted into being one of the first few patients to benefit from this new machine and its stereo tactical radiotherapy. The Cyberknife. What the heck I thought why not (visions of Goldfinger return). But alas my turn was to come and go as the machine wasn’t out of the box in time for the therapy and then they suggested I might not want to wait. What was to be a single large dose became ten smaller doses over as many days. No hair loss this time and no unexpected side effects. Oh, I forgot to mention that this is my back we are talking about, lower left lumbar region.
Well, I just had a memory of that last treatment that made me smile, so let me share it with you.
I would become invested in the temporary radioactive club. Every day for ten consecutive days. You would see the same half dozen people as you shared a small but comfortable waiting space often wondering just who is a patient and who is the concerned relative…I still get it wrong.
Before many of these radiotherapy sessions, measures are taken to reduce your mobility. When I first had my head done I was fitted with a Copley facsimile restraining mask which was then marked to coincide with the areas of treatment. So it was then when my back was done, I was to be marked accordingly with three black dot tattoos. The machine does not care which way up to treat you so you are invariably on a horizontal ‘transparent’ radiotherapy table. So, nothing new here, I’m on my back in my underwear answering the inevitable questions of my identity (just in case I swapped with someone…yeah!) which may of course have changed since 30 seconds earlier when they last asked me in my shorts.
The normal interrogation is: ‘Name... Address… Date of Birth?
Genuinely careful not to embarrass the patient by dropping his shorts to an uncomfortable level, paper towels are normally laid over any exposed area. With no weight to these towels you feel naked anyway. On this occasion I was attended by a rather camp therapist and he too began the questionnaire as he dealt with my usual embarrassment , ‘Name… Address…TELEPHONE NUMBER!’. ‘TELEPHONE NUMBER’?! Seeing his obvious deep embarrassment I am so proud of my immediate response ‘shouldn’t you buy me a drink first? With much giggling and apologising he cupped his hands to his face and left to put the plug in the machine and fry a few more of my cells.
The therapy was completed just before we went on holiday…That would be a Virgin Cruises Holiday (watch this space)! My back pain has reduced by some degree thanks.
And the Virgin Cruises thing? Perhaps next time.
For now I’ll leave you with the Cruise/Orlando photos:
https://picasaweb.google.com/Copleyphotos
Richard
N.B. I have recently sorted my Skype out with a separate phone. This means that I don’t miss calls by having either a headset connected or the computer volume being turned down. Would anyone who uses the system like to send me an invite on Skype to: richard.copley UK, Southend on Sea.
Just occasionally you won’t get the video though…so vain!!! R
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