My first radiation appointment (in this series) had no radiation, it was a planning session. While being mapped, I asked the two young lady technicians if they had a most memorable patient. They said no, patients come and go daily, no one has really stood out in the parade.
After a while, one of them remembered a tattooed patient who, for his final treatment had printed THANK YOU across his chest with a big felt marker. He was the most memorable.
I told them my prostate surgery seven years ago was on the morning of St Patrick’s Day, and how I was going to tie a green bow on myself so when the surgeon pulls back the sheet to operate, he would say, “Oh – Yes… it is St Patrick’s Day!”
But, I confessed that I chickened out. That doctor and team didn’t know me and could possibly suspect I was a weird-O. One technician thought that was really funny and wondered if I would do something on my last visit here.
I had seven weeks to consider it, and they had seven weeks to determine the odds of me being any kind of weird.
My daily radiation treatment routine is as follows:
- Allow time to drive to my appointment considering traffic and parking
- Schedule myself to arrive with a comfortably full bladder
- Go directly to the radiation dispensary department
- Remove pants and shoes
- Put on a hospital gown
- Visit in the waiting room until escorted to the Radiator
- Reciting the magic words (my birth date) gets me through the last door
- Lay on the slab
- Put my legs into the “don’t move” mold made just for me
- To expose my new hospital tattoo laser targets: slip my underwear down to the borderline that separates PG-13 from RATED R
- The machine orbits my equator once while performing a scan, and once again delivering radiation
I drove the 21.8 miles once again for my 38th and final radiation treatment. In the changing room, I switched to my brand-new, carefully chosen, Wonder Woman underwear.
We shared a good laugh and the technicians were properly dazzled when I laid on the slab, drew open my hospital gown and presented my new colors. They were even more impressed when I lowered them to reveal the message my wife had carefully inscribed just north of the border with a king size Sharpie, “THANK YOU x38.” They said it made their day and would be talked about for a long time.
