Day 45, 46, 47 and 48, Thursday-Sunday, March 14-17th

Thursday was uneventful. I got some exercise, was visited by many and myriad medical personnel, and sampled the hospital cuisine. Mom came to visit for several hours, and that was nice. Thursday was the given day of rest between chemotherapy and total body irradiation, which is half a kindness and half a necessity, as you must be fit enough to stand for the radiation treatments.

Friday dawned with orthostatic vital signs (lying down, sitting up, and standing), a fresh bout of Nev-R-Barf ^(tm), and then a wheelchair limousine squired me down to the radiation department.

When you submit to total body irradiation, you stand in an apparatus not entirely unlike the form for a concrete wall.  It has a plexiglass front and back, with rods running throughout it for support. Some of the rods support the plexiglass, and some of them support you. There's a bicycle seat that you maneuver awkwardly onto so that between passes of the beam you can rest for a spell. The actual dispenser of x-rays is on the other end of the room, the visible and articulateable end of a long housing, full of whirligigs and bibblibobs that turn electricity in radiation.

They shoot radiation at you while you listen to music (they have Pandora, or you can bring in an iPod), and then they flip you around and repeat. The entire process takes about an hour, including set up time and adjustments, but not including the wheelchair transit time there and back.

It's a very unusual experience in that you can't sense anything other than the buzz of the machine, but you gradually start to feel a little unwell, in a strange way that is quite difficult to articulate. Mostly, you're inexplicably tired, your joints ache vaguely, and food is unappealing. I'm told that, historically, there would be considerable nausea, as well, but so far that's been handled quite satisfactorily by the hospital-supplied anti-nauseants. I'm having the best success with the Ativan, by far.

After the first treatment, I felt well enough to join in a rousing rendition of Hit the Road, Jack with the nurse pushing my wheelchair, but that faded shortly after I returned to my room. I needed to nap. Hospitals, however, are not conducive to naps. I was visited by the ghosts of hospitals past, present, future, opposite day, dimension X, taco Tuesday, Cinco de Mayo, the Star Wars Christmas Special, and at least three others that I couldn't place, every ten minutes for the two hours immediately following my return.

I suffered through the second treatment. I was lightheaded, low on energy, and quite dehydrated. It came out later that I should have been given IV fluids after radiation. Whoops. Oh well. I ate a tiny bit of supper, took my meds, and went to sleep.

I handled the radiation pretty well on Friday, but on Saturday I was really lightheaded and had very low energy, and the TBI team leader was quite concerned that I would faint. I didn't, although we had to take a few breaks for me. When they sent me back upstairs, I got hooked up to fluids, went for a long walk, and felt much better.

Sunday, I didn't have any sort of lightheadedness, and was actually in pretty good spirits; good enough to crack jokes with the radiology staff, who were only there that day for my benefit, anyway. They liked my music.

After my last treatment on Sunday, I grabbed my glasses (which you are not allowed to wear during treatment - no metal at all, in fact) and finally found Waldo. On the wall that you face when they irradiate your dorsal region, there is a Where's Waldo book taped to the wall, and open to a certain page. I can't see clearly six inches in front of my face without my glasses, so I'd been staring at this hazy Where's Waldo for three f%@#ing days and I wanted some closure.

I have had spurts of energy, during which time I get out and walk. Exercise is absolutely vital to a speedy recovery. Radiation has given me the tiniest little appetite; I get hungry normally, but no matter what I eat, I feel full after just a few bites. My mouth full of thick, unhappy saliva because of the damage the radiation does to the salivary glands. It's going to be a while before that comes back to normal. Mostly, well, I'm tired.

I am the very model of a modern major cancer patient...