Well today was a long day. First thing I need to say is that the staff at the Northwestern Chicago Proton Center were just amazing. My new radiation oncologist Dr. Chang is very cool and made me feel very at ease and comfortable with the plan they are putting in place for me. The best thing about all this is feeling comfortable with the team that is put together for your health care. Most people don't think about it but it is very important. The facility is amazing. The waiting room is bigger than my apartment lol. It has a fireplace and a bunch of comfortable chairs in this big open area where obviously family members can just chill.
Where do I start with today... I got to sit and meet with DR. Chang's nurse who will be taking care of me for the duration of my treatments. She was very awesome. Then a meeting with Dr. Chang explaining my case and what proton radiation is and what the benefits are and why I am schlepping my ass all the way up to Naperville. Basically proton radiation is safer for younger (yes I am still considered young lol) people because they can control the beam of radiation and stop it where they want to. In my case because this is in my chest the radiation will not cause any damage to my heart and lungs. Well I am all for that!
This treatment will kill any Hodgkins cancer cells if there is any left in that spot. The end game here is to completely kill this off. So after my talk with the Doctor I was ready to go in back and get started with making a mold and getting some new tattoos. Yes I got 4 new tats today. First the molds. I had to lay on the table while they made a foam mold of my back. They lined me up with with four point laser level. They marked all four points on my body with small tattoos. Then they made a mask mold. This was creepy because they took this mesh sheet out of warm water and they stretched it over my face and locked it to the table beneath me.
I had to stay in that position for about ten minutes for the mask to dry. After it dried it was a soft rubber mold. I was able to breath through it because the holes were a decent size.
So the point of the mask is that I will have my head locked to the table and the back mold will hold me in place for my treatment. This will assure that the radiation will always hit the same spot every time. I will have about thirty treatments of radiation. It will be an everyday trip to the proton center for a month. This process took a little over 4 hours today. This is another long process but my life is worth the bullshit I need to go through.
All in all I am happy with the way things are going. Not that I am happy to have to go through it but at this point I guess I am all in as they say. Once you start down this road it takes over your life. It becomes the main focus every day. Every day you are fighting to get better. Doctors visits, follow ups, treatments. It is a new world that people never think of. We take our lives for granted every day. We never think about the shit like this changing your life. The only part about going to the proton center is that they treat a lot of children there. Seeing that breaks my heart. Having kids of my own really gets me shaken up when I see these brave kids fighting cancer.
Well today was a long day indeed. I will leave you all here and again thank you all for riding shotgun on this crazy ride with me.
SMIB \m/
Where do I start with today... I got to sit and meet with DR. Chang's nurse who will be taking care of me for the duration of my treatments. She was very awesome. Then a meeting with Dr. Chang explaining my case and what proton radiation is and what the benefits are and why I am schlepping my ass all the way up to Naperville. Basically proton radiation is safer for younger (yes I am still considered young lol) people because they can control the beam of radiation and stop it where they want to. In my case because this is in my chest the radiation will not cause any damage to my heart and lungs. Well I am all for that!
This treatment will kill any Hodgkins cancer cells if there is any left in that spot. The end game here is to completely kill this off. So after my talk with the Doctor I was ready to go in back and get started with making a mold and getting some new tattoos. Yes I got 4 new tats today. First the molds. I had to lay on the table while they made a foam mold of my back. They lined me up with with four point laser level. They marked all four points on my body with small tattoos. Then they made a mask mold. This was creepy because they took this mesh sheet out of warm water and they stretched it over my face and locked it to the table beneath me.
I had to stay in that position for about ten minutes for the mask to dry. After it dried it was a soft rubber mold. I was able to breath through it because the holes were a decent size.So the point of the mask is that I will have my head locked to the table and the back mold will hold me in place for my treatment. This will assure that the radiation will always hit the same spot every time. I will have about thirty treatments of radiation. It will be an everyday trip to the proton center for a month. This process took a little over 4 hours today. This is another long process but my life is worth the bullshit I need to go through.
All in all I am happy with the way things are going. Not that I am happy to have to go through it but at this point I guess I am all in as they say. Once you start down this road it takes over your life. It becomes the main focus every day. Every day you are fighting to get better. Doctors visits, follow ups, treatments. It is a new world that people never think of. We take our lives for granted every day. We never think about the shit like this changing your life. The only part about going to the proton center is that they treat a lot of children there. Seeing that breaks my heart. Having kids of my own really gets me shaken up when I see these brave kids fighting cancer.
Well today was a long day indeed. I will leave you all here and again thank you all for riding shotgun on this crazy ride with me.
SMIB \m/
Hey brother, glad to hear it sounds like it went as well as it could. You are a trooper dude, what a year eh? Just think, 29 days and onto the best year of your life so far.
ReplyDeleteYeah not bad. But I didn't have a treatment yet. It takes a few weeks to plan a treatment. So I'm once again in a holding pattern. But un the meantime I'm just going to keep working out and getting better.
ReplyDeleteOh I see, yeah thats all you can do man
ReplyDelete