waffle face

I think my mask has gotten a lot tighter since they made it... or my face has gotten a lot fatter in the last few weeks.  I am hoping it is the former, but who really knows?

I just started my third week of radiation.  Radiation is... okay... not that bad... a lot better than chemo... but let's be honest, it's no fun.

Everyday I make the 40 minute drive to Ann Arbor.  A friend from church has set up a drive schedule for me so most of the days someone from church drives me.  Except on Monday, that's when my brother Patrick takes me there.  It's been really great thus far because everyday I have the chance to have a good conversation with someone new.  It's quite lovely actually.

I get to radiation, sign in, and go get changed.  I only have to wear a gown on top so I still get to wear my pants and shoes.  There is a waiting room where all the gowned patients wait.  My first day I chatted with a couple other people waiting for radiation.  I find myself not being very reserved when it comes to cancer.  In the waiting room I just asked the various people what kind of cancer they have.  I found that as time has gone by I have become less and less coy about it.  When I was first at school and getting all those tests done to figure out what was wrong with me I never really said the word 'cancer'.  Or if someone asked me how I was I always said fine, even though I was very not fine.  As time went by I kind of got tired of trying to protect others, so I just started saying exactly what I was thinking and exactly how I was feeling.  I know the exact moment when I lost all coyness.  In the bookstore I ran into a friend I used to work with and we chatted for a moment.  He asked how I was and I said I'm good, but I have cancer.  Whoops.  Probably wasn't necessary to tell him like that.  Oh well.  Since then I have been unabashed with this illness.  So nobody else needs to be shy or coy about it with me either.

The radiation techs come fetch me from the waiting room and we go to the treatment room.  I lie down on a table and they secure me by putting my mask on and attaching it to the table.  They have to secure my shoulders as well.  If you can imagine a swing, how it has a board and two chains coming up.. that is similar to what I have to hold.  There is a board that my feet are on and the two ropes coming up have handles on them that I hold.  It pulls my shoulders down.  When my treatment began it was incredibly uncomfortable.  I would whine and complain about it acting in general like a big wimp.  But now it doesn't bother me so much.

Everyday thus far they have scanned me with a CT scan to make sure I am in the correct positioning... and then the radiation starts.  It's really just a couple minutes long, two maximum.  Two beeps indicating the radiation is happening, and I'm done.  Home until the next day when it starts all over again.

I have been meeting the most incredible people.  People who have beaten the most staggering odds.  Those that have the greatest outlook on life.  It's kind of strange but... it makes me grateful for my own problems, for my own cancer.  It's amazing what a bit of perspective can do.

2 done.  5 to go.  Then I'm done... at least for a bit.

The tardis gives me a waffle face whenever I wear it.

unpublished tumor photos

As I wrote in my first post... I didn't know about the bump behind my ear until a doctor pointed it out to me.  Which is kind of pitiful because it was a very large bump.  

Here are a couple old pictures of my pesky bump that have not graced the blogging world.

These two were taken before my surgery in Utah.  The 'yes' is there so the surgeons knew they were operating on the correct thing.  It would have been pretty disappointing to wake up with a tumor and no tonsils.

I initially got a CT scan.  I looked at the disc of the images in my lab and we were all trying to figure out where the tumor was.  We concluded it was the white circle on the left side of this picture.  We got it wrong... 

We weren't even in the correct slice of my head.  I don't know how we missed the tumor on the right side of this next image.  Apparently CT scans and MRI images are backwards.  The right side of the image is actually the left side of the head.

After I got my MRI I remember sitting in my Bacterial Pathogenesis class and staring at the pictures of my tumor on my laptop.  I couldn't stop thinking, "What are you?" "What effect are you going to have on my life?"  The MRI images were a lot clearer than the CT scans.

This is a view from behind.  I'm so muscular.

Well the tumor is gone... and much of the muscle in my neck.  On Monday I start radiation for only 7 weeks!  Almost there.