ok, warning, I am about to write a series of thoughts that will probably not make sense and most likely not flow together, but I have to get them out of my brain.
This has been a crazy week, full of all kinds of emotions and accomplishments.
So, I finished radiation. It was so weird. That morning before I went, I really wasn’t thinking anything about it. I knew it was the last day and was already kinda relieved knowing this would be over, but I don’t think I realized until I was laying on the table what I had “accomplished”. It was a right of passage in a way. Kinda going through something that I could check off in my list of remedies to the cancer process.
It wasn’t until I was laying on the table that morning that it all hit. In essence, when the mask went on, I was a different person. You cant really talk with the mask on, so once they put it on me, they move me around to get me set will all the alignments and then they zap me and then I’m done.
But, on Wednesday, everything after the mask happened in slow motion. All the moving of the machine and all the clicks I hear while it is rotating seemed to move so slow. Almost, like I heard every clink of the track as it rotated. You know that noise you hear as you climb up the first (or highest) hill on a roller coaster. Click, click, click, to the top. That’s what it felt like. I could hear as it clicked past every slot on the track. First, the back, then the front. It also seemed to radiate longer, but I bet that was more my imagination than anything.
As I laid there, it hit me what I was doing. There have been moments throughout the process where these same thought have gone through my mind, but on Wednesday, it was different. I realized this was the last day I would be having these thoughts, these feelings. And, that is the moment when the emotions hit. I usually am pretty emotional and I thought about that, that morning while I was getting ready. I wondered if I would cry and told myself I wouldn’t. Why would I? I wondered if I would have a big smile on my face when it was over. If wondered if I would feel relieved or sad.
Sad was an emotion that I felt. I know, kinda weird. Almost like the last day of high school or graduation day from college. I was glad for what I was going through, but also sad that I wasn’t coming to this very familiar place everyday any more (I mean, I laid there with my shirt off for 17 days in a row!!! If that’s not getting to know someone I’m not really sure what is). It’s hard to describe. I think some of my tears were a grief in a way. I’m not really good with change, so I’m sure that had something to do with it. I like routine and I had settled in to the process that I had become accustomed to. I felt guilty walking out the door that day with two ladies still in the locker room waiting their turn.
I remember the day I walked out with a woman when it was her last day and thought I cant wait for that, but this was not what I was expecting to feel. The emotions were there. I wanted to thank everyone around me. They had helped save my life. Fix me, make me better and I will forever be grateful.
I always heard that the CARTI people were like family and I thought there was no way. But, that’s what I felt. Kinda like leaving them and not really knowing the next time I would see them. Strange. But, I was glad it was over. It was very weird not to get up and go there the next morning.
It was a great day of celebration.
