Who Knew?

April 15, 2011: This morning, I'm back at the Utah Cancer Specialist Center with Mom at my side. Walking in the front doors is not quite as hard today. I'm getting used to these places where suffering people look pretty much like you and me - oh wait, I am one of those people now. And yet, I'm also getting used to seeing people who are still smiling, still making jokes, still being polite to perfect strangers, still getting up every morning and fighting their way through another battlefield.

I follow a woman to the check-in desk. She's very thin, like a walking stick. No one is behind the desk to greet us, so we automatically turn to each other. I smile and say something like, "Well, we're here on time - where are they?" She smiles, too, and struggles a bit to speak. I notice that her mouth is crooked. But more than that, I notice her neck scar, mainly because it is terrible and so much worse than mine. Where mine is mostly hidden by my growing hair, hers hangs down her neck to her collarbone, loose and misshapen, red and wrinkled. I want to whisper, "I'm so sorry," and then I realize that she is looking at my neck. She has noticed my scar. Maybe we are thinking the same things, she and I. We are bound together in this chaos. I'll never complain about my scar again.

Mom and I go through the office doors to another waiting room. There is a little portable boom box on an end table, spouting static and popular music. I'd rather turn it off than wade through the crackle to find the tune. A tech named Jenny comes to get me and off I go, leaving Mom to make her way to the outside waiting room to maybe find a Coke machine and a soft chair.

Jenny introduces me to a second tech who sits in front of a computer outside the CT scan room. She tells me that this is not the room where I'll be getting treatments, but the narrow silver table is much the same. "We are going to do your mapping today," she says, and I nod like I know what she's saying and what's going to happen. I did know all of this a few days ago after my talk with Dr. Avizonis, but today, I'm wiped clean, waiting to be filled again. She shows me someone's finished "map" that's sitting on a shelf - a plastic-netted half-bust with a head and neck and shoulders that someone (maybe Jenny) has drawn red and black marks on. It's weird, surreal. People have really done this before today? Someone other than me?

I lay on the silver table. I get my neck positioned on a little cradle. The other tech (can't remember her name) hands me a white cloth that's been folded and tied with two big knots about a foot apart. "This is for you to hold onto," she says, "so your hands will have something to do." I'm grateful. I cling to those knots with all my strength. Dr. Avizonis comes in, breezy and cheerful. She thinks I should take off my blouse, just so I don't "go home dripping wet." The techs help me take it off. I've undressed in front of so many people, it barely matters anymore - almost. Dr. A tells me about her conversation with Dr. Grossmann yesterday, that both of us agreed this was the next step in my treatment. She proclaims the "luck" of getting me in for my mapping today, since she isn't normally at the UCS Center on Friday. I know it isn't luck - it was meant to be. I love the way she talks to me, like I'm one of her sisters. She puts one hand on my back and the other on my arm and gently caresses me. It calms me and makes me feel special. I wonder if she realizes how much that means to someone who is scared and uncertain about the next five minutes, the next hour, the next six months... I'm so grateful for her.

The doctor gives me another smile and quietly leaves so the technicians can get back to work. I stare at the white ceiling tiles while they mix up the concoction they'll be putting on my face. I've been warned that it will feel very warm, but it won't burn me - "just be prepared for a bit of a shock when we put it on your face." As Dr. A told me on Tuesday, it's like a liquid "blob" at first, but when it cools and dries, it hardens into a mold. Finally, the techs are coming toward me. "Ready?" one says. Sure, whatever. And then, it's on my face.

It is the strangest thing. Yes, it's very warm, like a hot washcloth. I hurry and close my eyes and breathe through my nose. Dr. A told me to just pretend I'm at a spa having a facial. I'm pretending with all my might. Then, standing on each side of me, the techs start pulling at it, stretching it over my face, smoothing it over my cheeks and forehead and down my neck and across my shoulders. There are holes in it, diamond-shaped like a waffle cone, and I can feel them pressing into my skin. The techs are tugging, pulling at it, and I feel it across my chest and over my shoulders. When they have it stretched all the way, I hear clicks and snaps as they fasten it right to the table - and there I am, pinned like a giant moth to black velvet.

The next step is the cooling process. I think I hear one of the techs talk about the "freezer", so maybe they have taken some kind of cloth from there to smooth over my face and neck and shoulders. It feels good as it cools, but I can also tell it's hardening. I realize that I have to swallow, even though I'm not supposed to move. It's strange - the "net" is pressing against my esophagus. I hope I don't start choking. I swallow once, then twice, and it's okay, but I can already feel the saliva forming again above my tongue. This is harder than I thought.

When I've been tethered to the table, one of the techs asks if I'm all right. I obviously can't open my mouth or nod my head, so I mumble, "uh-huh", in my throat. I sound different from way down there. They are now "marking" the plastic shell. I can feel them at my left ear, my chin, my forehead, both my eyes. The right side, I don't feel so much since it's still kind of numb from my surgery. Jenny must be the junior tech - the other girl comes around the table to check her work and says it looks great. "We shouldn't have to make any marks on your skin," she says. Oh, darn, I thought a tattoo might be a great conversation piece. She tells me that they're going to step outside the room while I go into the scanning chamber. I think it's probably a good thing that my eyes aren't open. I'm not sure how long I'm in there, but I begin to feel like I'm on a conveyor belt that's being operated by a four year-old - all the way in, all the way out (I can tell because it gets lighter and darker), in an inch at a time, stop and go, out an inch at a time - and then the loud whirring of the machine as it takes its images. I have to swallow a few more times. I'm afraid my chin isn't up enough, which means the radiation might shoot too close to my eyes. My mind is full of chatter - and then I start my mantra of "miracles and hope". It helps.

Finally, finally, I can feel the table sliding back out. There is light on my eyelids. The techs open the door and come back on both sides of me. I hear them un-snap and un-click and then the tightness against my skin is relieved. Off comes the mask and I can open my eyes. I can open my mouth and swallow without pressure. They set the mask on the floor (after all that, it should be placed in a vault where no one can ruin it!) and help me to sit up. I'm wobbly. Jenny takes the knotted cloth and I can see it's been wrung to death. They leave the room so I can put my blouse back on and I put my feet on the floor to steady myself. I can see myself in the glass of a cabinet - my hair is standing on end on my forehead and it feels damp in the back. I'm wondering why I even bothered to wash it and make it presentable, or why I wore makeup today. I'm sure I look a fright with a nice honeycomb pattern all over my face and neck and chest. Oooh, boy, let's go out dancing.

I get an appointment card that says I need to come back the day after Easter for a "dry run" of my treatment. I'm still too numb to think to ask if that means I actually get a treatment that day, but I doubt it. Jenny says that they'll check everything out to make sure it's going to work perfectly before they start my regular routine. This is too real, this is really happening, I am really going to have radiation treatments - wow.

My cute mommy is in the main waiting area. There is a school of massage therapists giving free 15-minute massages to anyone who would like one this morning, and there is Mumsy, getting her arms and hands kneaded by a blond masseuse. I lean over her and say, "Are we having fun yet?" and I know she is surprised to see me already, even though I feel like I've been in the scanning chamber for hours. I have to get a drink of water and sit. I keep thinking, "That was the weirdest thing ever. Who knew there were people out there doing this kind of thing?" I liked it better when I was naive to all of this.

Get mapping done - check. Get dentist appointment so my teeth don't all fall out during treatments - check. Do all the other umpteen things I've been told I have to do in the next five minutes - no check. But, hey, there's only so much one little overweight grammy with bad hair can take in one day - and that was it. How do people who don't start their day with prayer and a few chapters of scripture feasting make it? I could never do it. I don't ever want to try.