My Radiation Therapy
Back to my story … a few weeks after my partial mastectomy, I had a consultation with my Radiation Oncologist, Dr. Bruce Haffty, of the Department of Therapeutic Radiology at Yale.
Dr. Haffty was all about science. He walked into the room for that initial consultation, opened my gown, and began to scan my breasts and study my chest in a completely clinical way. Suddenly, as if he remembered I was human, he stepped back, smiled and said, “I’m sorry. My name is Bruce Haffty. It’s nice to meet you,” and he shook my hand.
Dr. Haffty then asked me if he could open my gown and take a look. I consented, of course, that was why I was there. Later that day I realized it was okay that a doctor who would be looking at technological equipment and computers and clinical printouts and measurements was just a little bit … cold. Radiation therapy is methodical, precise and to some degree, impersonal.
FYI, Dr. Haffty is now practicing at The Cancer Institute of New Jersey — Yale’s loss, CINJ’s gain if you ask me.
A simulation of my treatment protocol was scheduled for September 11th; my first set of films were to be taken on September 16th; my first day of radiation was to be September 17th. My 36th birthday was to be September 18th.
As I laid topless on the table during the simulation, in a room straight out of a Star Wars set and in front of five or six people I hadn’t met, the tears just rolled down my face. I had no physical pain that day, the red laser beams of lights that were mapping out an action plan on my chest didn’t hurt at all, but my emotional well-being was suffering greatly.
This was cancer treatment. I had cancer. It was real.
See, up until that point, I was spending a large amount of time denying anything would change in my life. A day of outpatient surgery can come and go and life can go on as if nothing would really change. But that … that radiation therapy … the simulation, the x-ray films, the 33 sessions in the radiation clinic and the physical side effects of those sessions … that was all very, very real.
Those tears I shed on that table were not the last my treatment team would be seeing, I thought, unless I came up with something to get me through my treatment.
April 13th, 2007 at 11:18 am
You were not alone my friend…I cried as well. It’s unexplainable, not so much the physical things we go thru, but the mental. Only one who’s been there truly knows. (((((Hugs))))