Days 3, 4 & 5

Day 3

Can I just tell you, I KNEW that Stella and I would be RFFs (radiation friends forever). I took my High School Musical lunchbox in (so I could finish the foods in there) and Stella saw it and we conversed about it. Ultimately, she told me she watches Disney Channel!! Like seriously, could I ask for a cooler technician? No I tell you, I could not.

Each day when I get there, my nurse Anthony takes my vitals in "the green chair". (He takes them again at the end of each session. I'm assuming this is to make sure nothing goes all crazy from the radiation.)


The green chair


The door into the radiation room.

This is Stella at her station. The little gray thing on the wall is how she communicates with me. The screen on the left is 4 angles of the radiation room, the screen on the right usually has pictures of my brain and where Roli is doing his thing and the adjustments he has to make (and I'm sure lots of things that she has to make sure are going right).

I decided that his official name is Roli (Robot-Laser-Inator). On Phineas & Ferb there's a character named Dr. Doofenshmirtz who's evil. His building is called Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc. He invents all sorts of thing to cause trouble (usually because of something that happened to him as a child) and each one ends in "inator". You know, like Shrink-inator or Evaporator-inator or Even-Bigger-inator. (Surprisingly, there is one of the longest pages ever of info on Doofenshmirtz on Wiki if you're interested.) Anyway, point of story - his name is Roli.

Day 4

I discovered that I GET TO KEEP THE MASK!! Woo-hoo!

Look my name is on my mask with words in another language underneath. If I had to guess, I'd say the language is smart-people-medical-terminese. But I didn't look too closely.

You can't really see it, but I was trying to take a picture of the green laser that (I'm assuming) helps line me up.

And I just thought this was a cool angle of Roli.

Day 5

Totally got there late on Friday. I left a little late, then realized I needed to put gas in my car, then when I got there this adorably cute old couple were getting in their car and all the valets were helping them so that took a little longer than usual. Did I ever mention that you valet park every time you go to any of the buildings at UT Southwestern? Luckily, radiation pays for me to park (cuz otherwise it would be $5 a visit).

On my way there I talked to my dad on the phone. He said, "Well, good thing this is your last treatment..... this week." For some reason that struck me as really funny.

So this treatment I get to meet a different technician - Jason. His wife's name is Susan & when I handed him my cd of Wicked he asked if it was the musical. (Um, my guy technician knew about Wicked!) He and his wife saw it when it was in town. So cool, eh?

So everything went as usual, UNTIL Roli stopped in the middle of my treatment. It was a little hiccup, where they had to re-boot something or another. Apparently this happens every once in a while with CyberKnives. But, get this, I'm the first one Roli stopped for. Roli is a brand new machine. I'm like the 10th patient to be treated and he stopped for me. He stopped so close to my face, I just wanted to reach out and touch him. I think he was just trying to let me know that he likes me too. ;)

I saw Dr. Timmerman. He checks in with you every week. He wanted to make sure I was doing okay. I told him my right eye seemed a little blurry and he told me to get some saline drops and see if it helps. He said that I'm a trendsetter. That he thinks that people in the future will have treatments like this.

I'll have to ask Stella just how trendy I am. I know he said that not many people are treated with a cyberknife like this, but I wasn't thinking I was THAT much of a trendsetter.