I'm not dead in a ditch

 I called my mama the other day, and she didn't answer the landline at their house. Then she didn't answer her cellphone. So of course, that meant she was dead in a ditch.

She called me back that afternoon, and I told her that it's crazy that if we can't reach someone on the phone, it can sometimes cause us to worry like that.

Well, I haven't been dead in a ditch or off the grid. I've just been waiting.

... and waiting

... and waiting.

Finally, this week, I'm getting to move forward. My radiation treatments start Thursday afternoon. They'll be five days a week for 6 1/2 weeks. That's 33 sessions.

I went for my "sim" appointment last week. That's like a trial run where they get everything set up. 

In the process, they took a CT scan. And then, and this was really weird, they took photographs. It was unnerving to have someone hold a digital camera above my chest and snap several pictures. Even though I know it's for medical purposes, it just seems wrong! They better not show up on the 'Gram!

After that, they put this squishy beanbag under my head and shoulders. It was filled with those tiny little beads. They'll be working on my right side, so I had to turn my head to the left. Then I had to bend my right arm at 90 degrees and raise it above my head. Once I assumed the position, the two techs in the room started pushing the beanbag up close to me, almost like they were forming it around me.

Well guess what? They were.

After they ran the CT, I sat up and realized that the outline of me was still in the beanbag. I reached over to touch it, and it was hard as a rock. That's the mold they've been talking about. They'll put that beanbag on the radiation machine for each of my appointments. Well, I don't guess I can call it a beanbag anymore. It's now officially an upper body mold.

On a side note, I've had video appointments with two different nurses, a P.A. and the radiation oncologist. When I've talked to the P.A., for some reason, I got the impression that she's tall. I'm not sure if it's because her phone was lower than her eyes and she was looking down or what. But when I finally met her in person last week, she walked in the room, and I didn't recognize her at all! She's about my height — 5' 3"! It's like when you pick up your cup and take a big swig, thinking it's water, but it's actually Sprite.

The process every day will be dropping my car with the valets at the door. Did I mention that they have free valet parking? The check-in desk is right near the door. They'll ask me the COVID questions and take my temperature, then they'll send me to the basement. That's where the radiation department is. There, I wait for my name to pop up on the screen, then I head to the green machine.

Apparently, there are different color machines for different intense-ness of the treatments. I'll start on green and move to yellow later. And the color has nothing to do with the machines. They're the colors of the room number signs.

So I guess I'm ready to go.

Ceiling panels add the appearance of blue skies.

There's not much free wall space in the treatment rooms, but there are swatches of wallpaper with trees and flowers. I guess the addition of nature is an attempt to be soothing.