Day 13-17 (or T minus 13 to T minus 9)

I've decided that the last 2.5 weeks will be counted in T minus terms. (So day 13 was also day T minus 13.)

Pretty much T minus 13 thru T minus 11 I slept... almost all the way thru the radiation. (I did not drive myself these days, just in case you were nervous.) I'm pretty sure Jason was my technician for a couple of the days (sorry Jason, I was kinda out of it), I'm pretty sure the cd I listened to was 'Kenny G on crack' and I'm pretty sure Roli had to be rebooted. Which leads me to the question, "Just how often does Roli have to be rebooted?" Cuz I've been here for 3 weeks and he's been rebooted 3 times for me. Am I just special? I mean, Roli and I are close like that but still I wonder...

Which leads me to T minus 10... the collimators. (I didn't even have to make up a name for that to sound cool.) Roli uses 2 collimators when he gives me my treatment. He starts out with the 20 then switches out for the 30. I get the same "strength" beam but one is smaller and one is larger. They determine what size to use based on how big your tumor is and how close it is to things like the optical nerve. When Dr. Timmerman told me about my treatment he said, "Your tumor is really big. No, I mean it's pretty dang big. Did I mention that your tumor is gi-nor-mous?!" (Okay so I threw that last part in, but you get the idea.)

(The 20 is the bottom left one.)

(This is the smallest one - it's a 5. A 5 is used on little baby tumors and ones where you have to be careful with optical nerves.)

(These are the 50 and 60. Stella said they've never been used on human beings. I think that means they've been used on the occasional elephant or perhaps sasquatch. The empty white collimator holder on the right is for the 30, Roli still had it when I took the picture.)

Oh! And there actually IS a red laser that Stella could turn on when she does a treatment. If only she had done it my first treatment.

So I accidentally took this picture of Stella. But I'm sharing it because it has her super cute Strawberry Shortcake scrubs. Strawberry Shortcake has the same initials as Stella. Too cute.

T minus 9

Oh, did I mention that I have to tell Stella my name, birthday, and where she's radiating - every single day? I think it's pretty funny. But I did find out that my RFF (again, radiation friend forever) was born exactly 1 month before me?! Cool, huh?!

When we went into the room today there was someone doing research. Roli has new exciting things in store! He will be used to treat breast tumors. This is really really neat because any tumor on your chest would move up and down when you breathe. And they've figured out how he can read someone's breathing and move accordingly. It's call synchrony (I think).

It reminds me of Singing in the Rain when they see the demo of a "talking movie" and the man says, "they are synchronized together in perfect unison".)

Anywho, Roli is only like the 2nd CyberKnife ever to start treating breast tumors. I think he's the only one doing any treatment besides brain and spinal cord.

Man, I love that Roli. He's so cutting edge... so trendy... so Roli...