Part Fifty-Four: Easy-Peasy

            “Easy-peasy” popped into my mind last week.  I had to look it up to make sure it was a bona fide word.  Sure enough, it is the British equivalent to “easy as pie.”  What remains a mystery is why I’m familiar with it, so I’ll blame that on my mother, who had an incredible vocabulary even when she was in the throes of Alzheimer’s.

            Question: what does “easy-peasy” have to do with breast cancer?  Answer: the early days of radiation therapy before the side effects set in.  These are the easy-peasy days.

            Let me walk you through a radiation treatment.  A technician calls my name, and we walk back to a dressing room where I undress from the waist up and put on a hospital gown.  I lock my belongings in a handy cabinet that even has a special holder for my glasses.  The tech escorts me across the hall to the CT/radiation room and asks if I want a warmed blanket.  I never refuse.  I lie down on a narrow, hard table.  The technician drapes that lovely blanket over my legs, I hold my arms straight up, and she removes my gown.  I position my head in the bean bag mold that was created at my first appointment.  There is no squish to the mold now; it feels like a form-fitting stone pillow for my neck, head, and arms, which are draped over my head.

            Then follows my “bag of potatoes” time, in which I lie limp and still as the two technicians position my body.  They use the sheet underneath me to pull and turn and slide me here and there until my tattoos—located on sternum, stomach, and sides—line up just right.  They remind me to lie very still, and then they leave the room.  Pretty soon the machine hums to life, and I slide into its open circle.  After a good five minutes or so, it slides me back out where I wait a few more minutes, utterly still and my arms starting to cramp.  Then it slides me back in the circle for maybe ten minutes and zaps me with the invisible radiation beam.  As the machine pops me back out, a technician returns to help me off the table. 

            I walk back across the hall, get dressed, check out at the front desk, and am in my car ready to drive home within thirty minutes of my arrival time.

            So, yes, the treatment is easy-peasy.  The drive to and from is not, but I am brushing up on my city driving skills, including evening rush-hour traffic this week.  Starting on Tuesday, my regular treatment time will be 1:45 p.m.  Now that will be a piece of cake.