1 down, 24 to go

Yesterday morning (Monday) I had my Plan Verification Simulation, which went OK other than the fact that it appears as though the folks that did my CT Simulation put me on the table backwards. The end result for my radiation treatment is that my head hangs off the table by about 6 inches (not too comfortable). This was not a problem during the CT Simulation though since they can freely move the table into and out of the CT Scan "doughnut". But with the radiation equipment, there is no hole, only a wall. They resolved this as best as they could by adding a Plexiglas plate to the end of the table. My bald head now rests comfortably on a pillow on top of this makeshift extension, though the back of my head touches the cold steel of the radiation arm. But hey, whatever works, just so long as I'm aligned properly so that they treat the right area.

This afternoon (Tuesday) I had my first radiation treatment. Though the radiation portion of the treatment took less than 5 minutes, it took an additional 45 minutes to align and re-verify (via x-ray) the treatment fields. The attending doctor confirmed that I was aligned "perfectly". The treatment itself was breeze and completely painless. In fact, it was exactly the same as the verification x-rays they took, just longer (about 30 seconds per position).

Hopefully tomorrow and subsequent days I can get in and out of the radiation room within 15 minutes. But I'm not complaining -- anything is better than chemo!