Mapping

This morning I was mapped for radiation. I won't bore you with details except to give a few highlights and thoughts.

While I was in the waiting room in my jonny, another woman in a jonny walked into the waiting room and sat down across from me. I noticed how young and beautiful and thin she was and we exchanged knowing smiles with each other. I imagined her to look like my friend, Colleen, who I met through an online support group but never met face-to-face. I wanted to chat with this woman because it was my first time there and it would have been nice to have a bit of support from a "kindred spirit" but my inner critic magically appeared as it always does when I want to do something that involves courage and it said to me "Don't even bother talking to her. She's too pretty to talk to you." Listening to my critic, I just looked at her and smiled. But then I heard her say something and I walked over to where she was sitting because I couldn't hear her. She started talking about the weather and how we were finally having a sunny day. I answered in kind and then the technician came out to get me. As I followed the technician down to the hall, I was proud of myself for ignoring the voice of my inner critic and listening instead to the voice of the angel sent to me for a brief moment to calm my nerves.

The technician brought me into a room, which for lack of a better term I will call a "mapping room." The technician motioned me over to a board-like table that was sitting in front of a scary-looking machine. I got on the table and the technician made me put my arms up over my head into two holders. Immediately I felt as though I was in one of those medieval racks, but I was surprisingly comfortable to be able to stretch out with a pillow under my knees for added comfort. When I looked up at the ceiling I saw the most beautiful panoramic photograph of a tropical island, and I heard the faint sound from the 40s of what I like to call "crooner music." With this forced serenity and all the attention I was receiving from the technician and the radiation oncologist I thought how easy it would be to get used to this routine.

While I was lying on the table I was thinking about all kinds of things but for a brief moment I was thinking about how tattoos were not legal just ten years ago in Massachusetts because of potential health risks, and I was thinking about the cancer risks associated with tanning parlors. Then I thought about the irony of the cancer-fighting treatment that I was preparing to receive that included both permanent markings on my skin and radiation.

I lay on the table for close to an hour, and what I went through during that time is really not worth mentioning except that it involved a lot of measuring, moving in and out of the scary-looking machine which turned out not to be so scary, and waiting for the technician to do whatever she had to do to make the appointment complete.

When I got up to leave, the technician handed me a card for my first appointment. I asked her whether she would be giving me my radiation treatments and she said with perfect self-esteem "It will either be me, or it will be Melissa. She's wonderful too." Ah to have faith in oneself.