Radiation: Starting week 3 and Talking about Hair Again

This week I start week 3 of radiation, so I thought it was time to show you a little more of what that looks like. Keep in mind, radiation takes maybe 15 minutes, not very long at all. I spend more time on the car ride there than I do in the room.

Here, you can see something similar to the machine they are using on me. I don't know all of the specifics, but it beams radiation to a very specific part of my brain using a combination of MRIs, CT scans, and X-rays to get a very detailed map of my brain. It is all very high-tech and fancy-looking.

Radiation machine

Now, because the beam of radiation has to go to such a specific part of my brain, they have to be sure that they have me in the exact same position every single time no matter what. So what you see below is similar to the mask that I have to get into, which was custom-made to my face to help with the mapping of my brain. It's a little difficult to see in this image, but that mask is held down with 3-4 toggles on each side. My specific mask has 6 points of contact where I am essentially stapled down to the table while the machine above does the humming radiation thing.

Radiation mask

So, for the fifteen or so minutes that I am basically stapled to the table, I get to listen to my music (individually curated playlists every day) and wait for the machine to do the thing. It is really not the most interesting thing in the world, although I do get a little anxiety getting into that mask every day (because I'm being restrained by my face). About an hour after the radiation treatment is done, I get the headache (common), my ears plug up (also common), and I get tired. Usually, I'm able to sleep for a couple of hours once The Husband gets me back home.

The other thing about radiation (which I've mentioned before) is that it does make your hair fall out, particularly in the specific areas that are being radiated. So this is what my head looks like on the non-radiation side:

Not terrible, right?

And this is what it looks like on the radiation side:

Yikes.

I won't lie: when the hair started falling out, I felt some distress that I didn't expect. I thought that I wasn't vain enough to care. I thought that shaving my head meant that I wouldn't notice it falling out in the first place. I thought it wouldn't matter.

What I didn't expect was that having the hair fall out on one side of my head would be a reminder. A reminder of my diagnosis.

Many days, I try to do something, anything, to make myself forget, at least for a while, that I have cancer. Some days, there is absolutely nothing I can do, because all day long, all I can think about is cancer, having cancer, being the cancer lady, cancer cancer cancer.

On the day I noticed my hair was falling out, but only on that side, it had been a day in which I had successfully had peace from the nightmare word that circles around my head all day. It had been a good day.

And then it wasn't. I remembered that I have brain cancer.

So yeah, starting week three of radiation is not necessarily fun, but now you can see a little more of what I go through for fifteen minutes a day. Is that more or less scary than you thought it was? Sometimes, I can't decide.

If you'd like to help, here are a few things that you might be able to do:
GoFundMe 
If you can't donate, please share this across any social media platforms. Thank you so much for your help and support!

My Amazon Wish List: These are comfort items, things that I think will help make me more comfortable over the next several weeks that I will be home. I've added several more hats to this list.

 My CashApp: I hate to even ask, but if you are willing and able to donate any amount at all, it would help me pay for gas, groceries, and other necessities, especially while I am not working.