Chapter 9: Holding Your Breath

"I'm tired." That was my first thought when i walked through the hospital doors that morning. And I was tired. I am tired. As we walked through the doors to the radiation oncolgy department, you could see the faces of patients, waiting their turn. Looking to the left, I saw a bell on the wall. The plaque had an inscription on it, a sweet rhyme, to ring at the end of treatment. I still can't remember what the inscription said exactly.

We checked in and sat down, waited our turn. Listened to the coughing, the voices, the sounds. People coming and going.

It was nervewracking, to say the least.

When they finally called my name, I was taken into the lab by one of the radiation techs. They showed me the machine, explained how i had to lay on the "couch" (note - the couch is not the same couch we know. It's a flat, hard bed.) with my arms above my head. It was quiet in the cold room as they explained the breathing techniques and brought in the tablet to show where to hold my breath. I lay on the machine, topless, with only a pillow cover over myself. Uncomfortable. They pulled the cover down for the radiation to reach my skin. More uncomfortable. Told me to hold my breath for 20 seconds. More uncomfortable. The techs spoke in numbers for a while, and adjusted my position on the bed. The cold, white room felt almost alien. It was odd. Eventually, the techs left the room, and began to instruct my breathing over a speaker, telling me when to breathe in, when to hold, and when to breathe out. The process took around 30 minutes to start with, but over time got easier. By the end of the treatment, we were in and out in under 20.

The first few sessions, I could feel the warm beams on my skin. I could feel them working their way through the muscles. They said I wouldn't feel anything? But that wasn't the case. I was aware that I may have some sort of sensitivity - after speaking with my psych, Cath, she told me that generally, people with any type of neurodivergency could have a sensitivity to radiation. How interesting.

When the appointment finished, I left the room, and checked out of the ocology department. I was tired. I wanted to go back to bed.

We arrived home, and that's what I did.

The next three weeks of my life were full of the same thing, Monday to Friday, except for Easter, every day.

5 days a week, 15 treatments in total.

We came and went every day, and one day we even watched someone ring the bell, an older gentleman. His wife(?) was so excited to watch, and filmed it. It was a nice sight to see in the sea of sadness that comes with cancer wards.

I took note of some of the other patients while I was there, too. A young man, maybe around 20 years old? Very pale, hair lost to chemotherapy. An older gentleman with many tattoos, who drove himself to every appointment. One of the nurses said he must be a super cool guy with all those tattoos. I almost laughed.

There were more, but I remember less. and less as time goes on now. Every day was the same as the one before. Arrive, do the treatment, go home. There were nurse followups in between, checking up on my side effects and making sure I was doing okay.

Redness, swelling, heat, a slight rash? All of these were normal. The second week was harder than the first. My lungs were inflamed. In fact, as I write this, they still are. I started to become short of breath after any long physical activity, including going up and down the stairs too many times, too fast. It sucked. During the day, I'd try to clean up the house, and wind up exhausted after less than an hour. Standing and folding clothes made me need to sit down and catch my breath.

But in my head, I kept telling myself, it could be worse. This is all for a reason. We can do this.

I often catch myself asking myself if it was selfish to take the time away from work. Many people do this and still work. I knew that my job would be far too difficult to do while feeling this way, but I still doubt myself.

I kept myself busy by writing, drawing, learning new skills, studying art and tattooing videos, trying to prepare myself to return to work and be better than I was before. It was a nice distraction. I had my online friends to keep my company in voice calls when I was lonely, and stream chat to talk to as well.

I've always loved creating new things, and this really kept me going through my time away.

Eventually, the radiation came to a conclusion. 15 sessions done.

The nurse asked, "do you want to ring the bell?" I rang the bell. Next up: Chapter 10: Days, weeks, months, years.