Radiation (4 of 20)

Charl just finished his first week of radiation. Tuesday was the first day, and we met with the techs and nurse to explain how the process will work; the dos and don’ts, what to expect, etc. In a room behind a very heavy door, Charl lies down on a gurney type bed which can be raised and lowered so that the light beams meet up with the small tattoos on his chest and sides (his head goes on the blue part). This is what it looks like:

Then the huge Star-Trek-esque machine rotates around him and they locate the precise points where they have to radiate. The techs read the screen on the machine, and also take readings from that PC monitor mounted near the ceiling. You can clearly read the monitor, but you can't read the monitor, if you know what I mean.

Now that he was in the correct position to administer radiation, for my safety, I was asked to leave the room. At that point I couldn't see the radiation being administered, but Charl said you see a projector like lens above you, kind of like an aperture focusing in a camera lens. It zaps him three times, for about 10 seconds on each of his tattoos. He doesn't feel anything at the time, but fatigue sets in a few hours after it is over. The nurse explained to us that while there isn't concrete evidence as to why all radiation patients feel so tired, they believe the fatigue is caused by the body working very hard to repair the intense "damage" done to the cells during radiation. That, to a body, is hard work and therefore exhausting.

Overall we are pleased with how it's going thus far. No negative side effects yet. 4 down, 16 to go...