Today went so easy. I really thought I heard the doctor say that today would be like an hour, but I was wrong. More like 20 minutes. I got there, checked in. Lisa picked out several magazines to occupy her time since I told her it would be an hour or so.

The lady came and got me and took me back to get in my robe. Now, I will go ahead and admit that I will probably add more details/ personal info to the coming posts than any of you will want to read or hear, but it is part of my process, and me laughing at it is like therapy.

When you go back, they give you a robe and tell you to just get ready. You get to put your stuff in a locker to keep it safe. Well, the lady hands me the robe and says to get ready. These robe are pretty confusing…they have 3 arm holes..yeah, go figure. If you know anything about me, you know it doesn’t take much to confuse me. So, that was an interesting little puzzle.

I knew that I obviously needed to take my shirt and bra off for the markings and wasn’t sure about the other, so I even took my pants off because I had on a belt with a metal buckle and I know that you cant have metal in there. Well, the main purpose of a belt is to hold up a pair of pants. While the majority of the time a belt is worn for “accessory” purposes, that was not the case today. Those pants are too big. Now, the logical thing would be to buy new pants if the ones you have are too big, but I like those pants and I cant find any that fit me (or used to fit me), like those, so I keep wearing them with my super useful accessory…a belt!

Anyway. Since I knew I had to take the belt off, and that my pants would fall down without the belt, I just went ahead and shed them as well. Of course as soon as I walk out with pants in hand, the lady says, “Oh, you didn’t have to take those off”. Well, now ya tell me! They should do a little more of the spell it out method. I know they were trying to not make me feel stupid, but I am, so I need it spelled out. Here is what you take off…..and here is what you can leave on.

So, no surprise, but I’m now the resident skank…the girl who is super willing to just take it all off for the cause!

So, you parade back to the CT scan room. I’m just making small talk the whole time to break the awkward silence. Moments like that are like those awkward moments on a date when neither person has anything to say because they are both trying to take in everything around them and think, very methodically, about the next statement or move. Yeah, there are a lot of these awkward moments in scan world and since I don’t handle them very well, I often find myself telling stories or making statements that I’m sure the technician doesn’t care a thing about…but they are nice enough to make me think they are listening.

So, yeah, there were about 20 minutes worth of those today. It is always very quiet and most people going through this are not handling it like I am, so I always have to find the fine line between being cheerful and respectful of the people around me.

So, you put all your stuff in a locker and then get this key on a bracelet that you get to carry with you…its a very creative system!

Then, you go back and lay down on the table and get ready to do the markings. They put a mask on you and before they can put it on you, it has to “cook”. Now, when I think of cook, I think of cookies, cakes, casseroles, not masks, but whatever. I think they are going for the warming process that makes the material the mask is made out of malleable to conform to your face. I assume that this will be a mask that I will wear each time to help hold my face in place.

So, the 5 minutes of cooking are up and the mask is ready. I need to insert here that when I hear the word mask, I think of Halloween or a white plastic form. So, that is what I’m thinking when she says you will have a mask. Or, even that thing that you put your face in, at the eye doctor that holds your face in place while they poof a burst of air in your eye. So, I’m ready for that. Then, when she mentions that she is making it hot so it will fit my face, I’m then thinking it has a gel side on the back that molds to your face and then it can sit there. Or, I’m thinking about a project we did one time at a Disciple now when we talked about the spiritual masks that we wear. We covered our faces with Vaseline and then dipped strips of gauze in Plaster of Paris and made a form of our face. After a while it dried and we were able to peel it off our face. It was a really cool project, but, it made a mold of our face. I also thought about the process of how they make a whitening tray and thought maybe they were going to take a “negative” mold of my face and then make a “mask” that would fit me for when I come back next week and do the radiation. Any of these options were something that I was familiar with. But, none of them were actually the option that happened.

The lady said ok, I’m ready and then I saw her coming my direction with something and I knew it was the “mask”. So, I closed my eyes so whatever it was did not get in them or mess with my contacts. When I did that, it meant that I did not see what they were putting on my face. You see I had tilted my head all the way back, so my chin was up and my neck was fully exposed. When I did that, she put this “mask” over my face and it literally (or atleast this is what it sounded and felt like) strapped me to the table. At first I was fine. She said it would have holes in it and I would be able to breathe like normal. Again, I was thinking, like most masks, that it had two air holes in the nose and since it felt like something over my mouth, that I did not need to move my lips or breathe out of them.

It was warm, so imagine, if you have ever had this done, the feeling of steaming towels being stretched across your face. You have a hole to breathe out of and you have to lay still so the towels form to your face. (It wasn’t torture or anything, I’m just trying to paint a picture). So, kinda like a facial! Then, after she put it on there, she formed the bottom around my chin and held it for a minute so it could “dry”. Then, she got a cool towel and rubbed it around the edges. She apologized for it being cool, but actually, it felt really good and like I said, almost like I think a facial would feel. Then, she let the rest of it “cool” while she went ahead and did the markings. Somewhere while she was doing the scan, I had to swallow. I was kinda scared that I would mess something up, but I went ahead and did it. When I did, the mask started slowly peeling away from my face. I thought I had messed something up. And then slowly, all the parts of it started peeling away. I quickly realized that it was just cooling and that this was normal, but there was an internal moment of panic.

There was also an internal moment of panic when I realized that my face was strapped down to the table. I thought it was a good thing that I’m not super claustrophobic, but this could be the moment where I become. Just think about the “mask” that Spiderman, Superman, or Daredevil wears. Yeah, then think about strapping you to a table so your head does not move…yeah, that was me.

I have a bulls eye in the middle of my upper chest just at the top of my breast and I have a mark on each arm and on my sides. The arm and sides are measurements to help line me up on the table and the one on my chest if for radiation. As I understand it since the mask comes down over my face and upper neck, those radiation markings are on the mask.

As one of my friends said today, that is a huge answer to prayer that I do not have to walk around with these purple markings on my face. I’m already staring to get funny looks. The arm markings are on the side of my bicep and visible with just about any shirt I wear. Since it is July and I live in the south, I don’t really see me wearing 3/4 length sleeves or long sleeves very often, so I’m ready for the funny looks and I already had to explain myself once today.

I’m getting good at that. I try to use the “lymphoma” or “chemo” or “radiation” or “treatment” words instead of “cancer”. They think when you say “I have cancer” that you have just mentioned the serving of a death sentence. It’s not quite as morbid when you use the other words. And, while I like the shock value, I realize that most people are not as comfortable with it as I am.

So, that was today. It was fun. Nothing (too) embarrassing and nothing sticking me or invasive. So, that’s all with CARTI until next Tuesday at 10:30. Mom and Resa came today for a week or so. So, we’ll play for a few days and then it is down to business.