Friday, July 20, 2007

do not want



I spent most of the day (a summer day, lovely as only an Alaskan summer day can be) lying on a hard table in a windowless room. Head back. arms over my head, trying to hold still as my nose itched and my ear itched and my muscles twitched in protest. Lasars sited on my tattoes. Big panels swooping towards me. At one minute four people in the room looked at my breast and shouted coordinates to each other and scribbled on me with markers. Then everyone withdrew for ten or twenty minutes while the machines swooped and whirred again.

Every single person warm and courteous. Showing me the films, showing me how the radiation field will spare my lungs and my other vital organs.

I should have nothing to complain about. I will have a new technique, partial breast irradiation. The third person in Alaska to get it. Five days instead of six weeks. Fewer side effects. Lucky, lucky again. Monday to Friday next week and then this story is over.

This scares me. I hate it.

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