Yesterday, Holly, Jean and I had a busy afternoon. The doctors had to start planning the radiation treatment by putting me in a IMRT simulator and an MRI. The simulator actually looks like a cat scan machine, but they made a molded plastic face mask to attach/hold my head in the exact position. The mask starts out as a piece of hard plastic mesh with two hooks. The warm up the plastic to make it stretchable and push it over my face till the hooks attach to the machine. Wait a couple minutes and the plastic cools to a hard shell. This mask then has marks put on it to line up my head with the machine. Its pretty freaky looking, I'll have to see If I can get a picture the next time I am there.
I also had an MRI to assist in the radiation planning. BTW, I took this home and tried to compare the images to images taken back in November. I can see where the biopsy was removed, and it did not look like the tumor grew much in that time period (under 2 months).
We also had a visit with Dr. Aikens about the Chemo. We walked out of there with 100 side effects to watch out for and a stack of prescriptions. Some of the prescriptions are to counter the effects of the others. Once I get it all strait (with my sisters help), I'll post a list of these so other patients that might be reading this can compare notes.
The radiation/chemo starts on January 19th. I still to to talk to my boss at work about possibly taking time off. The doctors are saying this is up to me, and if I choose to that it will be difficult. It is also difficult for me to sit around and not work. Hopefully I can work out some 'work from home' deal during the radiation therapy period.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment
To make a comment without an account, set the 'Comment as:' to 'Anonymous', Type your message then click 'Post Comment' Be sure to leave your name in the comment so one can tell who wrote it.