Today I finally started radiation therapy for breast cancer. After several months, and many, many delays, I finally had my very first radiation session.
I will do treatment every day for 4 weeks (excluding weekends).
It was almost a joke yesterday when I was, literally, getting dressed to head out for my first radiation appointment that had already been delayed and rescheduled 5 or 6 times, that my phone rang. It was the radiation tech calling to tell me not to come.
Can you believe it? The machine broke.
My treatment would be delayed...again. At least one more day.
It was as if the universe was reminding me one last time that there is and will be so much in this life that I will have absolutely no say over.
A reminder that in fact, I there are very few things that I do have a say in.
I got a bit emotional while flat-backed on the narrow treatment table, staring up. There was a blank monitor right above me that reflected back to me my splayed out body, arms over my head, exposing the extremity of all my new scars. Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon," was playing. I like this song. I looked foreign. An anonymous, exposed, white-pink frame. An unknown...patient.
I looked up at the portion of my body reflecting back from the black, latent screen. I neither recognized it, nor felt attached to it. It was too text-book. It looked too much like a no one. It was kind of good, in a way, to feel like my body was just normal, average. I had no emotional attachment to it. No embarrassment or shame despite how exposed I was.
The nurse dabbed a few tears that rolled down my cheeks and I said, "I'm okay. Just happy to finally get started. The beginning of the end. Finally.
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