The mask
Well, after a lot of research, talking with the radiologist again, and soul-searching, I decided to go ahead with radiation. I convinced my doctor to lower the strength of the armpit rads to 20 gy, but I'm still doing 30 gy on the neck. Bottom line for me was I can't fret about something that may or may not happen 20 years down the road - I need to be focused on making sure the lymphoma is gone NOW. If I relapsed in the next couple months or years, I'd always kick myself for not doing rads.
Today was my day to get my mask made. I've read a lot of horror stories from people that this is a freaky process to go through if you are at all claustrophobic, which thank goodness I'm not. It is weird as hell, though. They have a hard perforated sheet of plastic that they immerse in hot water to make it pliable, and then they put it over your face, stretch it down as it molds to your features and strap it to the table you're lying on. You're held immobile while the plastic cools and then you do the CT scan so they can map out where to put the markers that will help orient the beams. It's not fun to be confined under the mask for 15 minutes, but it didn't bother me that much. The worst thing for me was since it was wet, drops of water occasionally dripped down my face and was really annoying. That won't happen again, since in subsequent uses, the mask will be dry. *grin*
I also had to have three tattoo dots done. *sigh* More permanent reminders of this journey, as if I could forget it. Thank goodness they aren't on my neck...they are at the bottom of my rib cage; left, right and middle.
So now that's done and I'm just waiting for the scheduler to call me and set up my actual radiation appointments. I assume I'll start next week. Three more weeks of fighting the good fight. :)
Today was my day to get my mask made. I've read a lot of horror stories from people that this is a freaky process to go through if you are at all claustrophobic, which thank goodness I'm not. It is weird as hell, though. They have a hard perforated sheet of plastic that they immerse in hot water to make it pliable, and then they put it over your face, stretch it down as it molds to your features and strap it to the table you're lying on. You're held immobile while the plastic cools and then you do the CT scan so they can map out where to put the markers that will help orient the beams. It's not fun to be confined under the mask for 15 minutes, but it didn't bother me that much. The worst thing for me was since it was wet, drops of water occasionally dripped down my face and was really annoying. That won't happen again, since in subsequent uses, the mask will be dry. *grin*
I also had to have three tattoo dots done. *sigh* More permanent reminders of this journey, as if I could forget it. Thank goodness they aren't on my neck...they are at the bottom of my rib cage; left, right and middle.
So now that's done and I'm just waiting for the scheduler to call me and set up my actual radiation appointments. I assume I'll start next week. Three more weeks of fighting the good fight. :)