baldy

So yesterday I went ahead and shaved my head. It was oddly liberating. The hair loss has actually abated--it looks like I would have kept much of it. You pretty much lose it only where the radiation hits you, and my radiation hits a pretty targeted path. But it was bugging me, and I found myself itching for that clean start. I'm not going to say I look great bald--secretly I was hoping for that Natalie Portman look in "V"--but I actually like this new look a lot better than the mid-chemo look I was sporting before. And bald heads make cute hats and wigs a snap.

Going for the treatments is a wild experience. It really is like something out of the future. When the treatments first started, I was afraid to open my eyes, but apparently it doesn't make much difference. Now I watch everything.

Once they get you arranged, you're pretty much in that room on your own. Of course they don't want to expose the technicians to daily doses of radiation, so they all need to leave. But they watch me through little TV sets. They set me up on a special bench in the middle of this extremely high-tech room. They put a special mask over my face, a mask designed especially for me, that helps guide the radiation exactly where it needs to be for my particular condition. It isn't a full mask--it's more like a cross-hatch form that leaves spaces for the radiation to come through. I can see other people's masks lined up in that room, too, waiting for them when they come for their own treatments. Each one is different. The bench is surrounded by radiation machines, which look like TV sets attached to movable robotic arms suspended from the ceiling.

Everyone leaves the room. Then I will hear a bit of a buzzing sound as the machines get started. The screens come floating down on their robotic arms and begin positioning themselves in various places around my head for each of their radiation blasts.

When my eyes are open, I see nothing. Radiation, of course, is invisible. When my eyes are closed, however, I see periodic flashes of fluorescent purple light. They say everyone's experience on the radiation table is different, but some people have reported sensations similar to mine. When the radiation targets the nasal area (which is right in front of my tumor), I can feel it stimulating that sense of smell. I don't actually smell anything--it's a little different from that. But I can feel the sensation getting triggered. According to one of my radiation technicians, this experience, too, has been reported by others.

At first I tended to be a little dizzy and disoriented after the radiation. I'm not sure whether that was because of the radiation or whether it was just because I would go from lying down for about twenty minutes to standing up and walking suddenly. One day last week I hopped confidently off the table and then wandered into a side closet by accident. Oops! But now that doesn't happen to such a great extent. I take it more slowly, and I adjust fairly quickly. There's always someone--a family member, or Paul--to help me back out again.

Afterwards we always take the Coast Highway back home again. It's nice--I get to see the ocean, and Coast Highway takes us through the little town of Del Mar and then Solana Beach, both of which are all decorated for the holidays now.

And at that point I find myself just about ready for a nice nap.



Note: This is so not what I look like.




THIS is what I look like.



And this is what I look like now, with hair--and it's even in my old style. Snazzy new highlights, though!