Simulation involves lying on a table, perfectly still for about an hour, in a very uncomfortable position while a voice over the speaker tells you you’re doing well. Simulation also entails holding your breath for 20 – 40 seconds, over and over again. Oh yea, there are a bunch of Sharpee markers involved as well.
The set up:
- Enter the room, take off everything from the waist up, put on a gown that will be taken off (like who’s modest at this point?) and lie down on the table underneath a very large bazillion-pound machine.
- The doctor, who you’ve met at a previous appointment, comes in to say howdy.
- Then they put you “in the position” – what position that actually is depends on where they’re going to shoot the radiation. Whether left or right breast, they need a clean shot at it so either your right or left arm will be above your head. I’m not sure that, even when I was young, I would have been able to lay in this position for 45 minutes but it was sure as hell was tough to do at the age of 49.
- Out come the Sharpees. They mark you all up with Sharpees – they uses X, O, big sweeping circles, little dots… you name it, they use it!
- They then page the doctor to come take a look at whatever it is that the technicians are looking at behind their wall of lead and glass. The doctor apparently has to give his/her okay and then it’s on to the next step.
- Now they have to make the mold. This is a very high tech procedure. If you’ve ever been to the doctor you know that all of the trash cans are lined with a blue trash can liner. Well they take this liner and some duct tape fill the “trash bag” with expandable goo, duct tape it shut, then have you lay on it in the position they’ve determined to be the best for you. Again, don’t move!
- After about an hour of lying still, making the mold, being uncomfortable, you have your personalized mold made and now you get your tattoos.
- The arm goes back up and you get to hold still yet again. A very nice person (the tattoo artist) comes in and does the “this won’t hurt a bit” speech and pulls out the ink and needle. It is not like getting a real tattoo because it’s not an electric thing. It’s more like getting, I would guess, a prison tattoo because it’s just a needle and ink and it’s done manually. It seems to me that it is a pretty good size needle (blood draw gauge vs. tattoo gauge). Because it was only one poke for each tattoo… I had 4 and let me tell you it really hurts to have a needle stuck into your sternum (breastbone) – but it was only one stick.
- Once you get the feeling back into your shoulder, neck and arm you’re cleared to get dressed.
- Once dressed, they set up your first “real” appointment and then you leave with the absolutely wonderful and darling technicians wishing you well. They also tell you that when you show up for your first treatment you don’t have to go to the “general population” waiting area; you go to the back to the waiting area and they do show you where that is located.
Next up… the real deal.
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Tags: Breast Cancer, cancer, Radiation
December 4, 2009 at 10:56 am
Peggi
Your stories are very detailed and create a vivid image of what a person has to go through to treat this horrible disease. You always put on such a stiff upper lip and positive attitude that just like mom, the rest of us never really knew how much you were going through. Even though “it is what it is”, it doesn’t take away the fact that you have had to deal with many things others can’t even imagine. you are a strong, remarkable woman and kudos to you for telling your story and creating those “it is what it is” products
December 4, 2009 at 12:04 pm
ruth – thank you for the kind words. the process can be daunting or overwhelming but you just have to buck up and “fight like a girl” as the song say!