I “Broke” the Radiation Machine!

Today was an “exciting” day receiving my radiation treatment. Following the usual procedure, they secured my mask to the treatment table and took a couple of x-rays to make sure everything was aligned properly for the treatment. The radiation machine rotated around my head as I remain stationary and “shot” the radiation beams from the first few angles – so far so good. Then the machine stopped for a lengthy period of time – not normal.

As I lay there, my mind started to wander, and wonder what’s going on. I had to work on my visualization and mental talk to keep my anxiety at a reasonable level. A few minutes later, Jackie comes in and said there’s a problem with the machine and they need to restart the unit. Her question to me was, “Would you like to stay here (with mask in place) or get up while they figure out what’s going on.” That was an easy question to answer – get me out of this mask, now! After 30 minutes or so, they decided that the machine was not going to restart and they would have to get the engineer to figure out the problem.

So the rest of my treatment was canceled – as was treatment for those in the lobby waiting. They will call me to let me know about where and when I will receive treatment tomorrow – probably at Vanderbilt downtown.

So I’m not sure if this will count at treatment #5 or whether I will need to complete it on an other day. The doctor will review and decide.