The
call came Friday afternoon two blocks from home. Stopped for a school bus, I answered my
cellphone: “Hello, this is Janis.”
“Hi,
Janis; this is Sarah from Dr. Nguyen’s office.
We have a slot open Monday for your CT simulation. Let me ask, just to be sure: you want your
treatment in Tulsa, right?”
“Yes,”
I answered, sealing my fate. But I’ve
thought long and hard about this decision.
And prayed, too, of course. What
I come up with is that for six weeks of my life I can drive to Tulsa five days
a week to have the doctor I really like, the one who explains everything so
thoroughly and who knows her stuff so well.
I’ll only actually see her once a week, but the drive is still worth
that to me.
Thus,
on Monday, January 9, I will be at OCSRI-Tulsa for my 11 a.m. CT simulation and
tattoos (tiny dots for radiation reference points). I will do my best to follow Dr. Nguyen’s
previous advice to pretend I am a sack of potatoes. In other words, I must completely relax while
the technician is adjusting my position, which must be precisely the same for every
treatment that follows.
I
imagine that I will learn at least a couple things within the next two
months: getting comfortable with Tulsa traffic
and finding the secret to complete relaxation lying half-naked on a hard
surface with my right arm up over my head.
I also plan to get well acquainted with the drive home through Owasso,
where I can eat at Panera’s and grocery shop at Sprouts. I doubt I will buy any sacks of potatoes,
though.
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