Monday, April 14, 2008

Zap!

Today I started radiation and chemotherapy. Both were a bit on the anti-climatic side.

The radiation machine (here-after referred to as the "Zap-a-tron 3000") itself is pretty cool looking. It's this massive box about half the size of a walk-in freezer with a big armature sticking out of it. The arm rotates in a circle about a bed/bench that is next to the machine. (See this image.)

The therapist let Marjorie and Kyle come back and take a look before they started zapping Frank. Kyle was very impressed as the therapist put the Zap-a-tron 3000 through its paces.

After the demo, Kyle and Marjorie went to the waiting room and I laid down on bed/bench and got my first of many doses of radiation. The Zap-a-tron 3000 whirled and clicked and buzzed for ten minutes, and then we were done. No glowing green rays, no dancing blue electric pulses, not even a panel with lots of cool lights and switches. Very boring.

Chemotherapy was even less interesting (which is really a good thing). I take four chemo pills twice a day. No needles, no IVs, no ports. Very, very boring.

Still, even though I find it boring, I hope Frank the tumor finds it all very scary and leaves.

3 comments:

John P. Kilgo said...

Chemo in the form of a pill...seriously, why couldn't I get that hook-up?

slackdoug09 said...

Don't get too jealous, this is just the low-level chemo.

I will probably get a port and a pump for the high-dose chemotherapy after I have surgery.

John P. Kilgo said...

The port is the way to go...might be a bit of a pain in the ass, but from a guy that didn't have a port, getting an IV in the back of your hand on a weekly (or more) basis was not all that fun.
If you do get a pump, from what I've heard radiologists are the best to install them...just some rumor mill stuff I picked up in the chemo room.
Kilgo