Post #8: Afternoon Session on 12/18/08
We finished up with Dr. Nicholas’ staff by 11:45 AM and met a friend from the flow cytometry community who happens to work at the same hospital. Her name is Julie Auger and she, like all my network of flow cytometry people have been friends and colleagues for around 20 years or more. The three of us had lunch in the food court, caught up on old times and discussed the current situation and her willingness to help out in any way. Julie informed us that she had been treated at the same hospital and assured us that we were in good hands.
Dr. Nicholas’ staff had scheduled an appointment for me at 1:30 PM (same building) with the radiation oncologist, Dr. Vincenzo DeMasi, M.D. Dr. Nicholas’ team works closely with Dr. DeMasi and so he was quite aware of my situation. He and his associate examined me and let me know what the schedule was for the afternoon. It didn’t sound too bad or too long, but it turned out to be very, very tough on me.
The plan should have taken about 1.5 hours but it ended up being closer to 3 hours. They took me downstairs to the CT room for the purpose of making a mold of my head that would precisely align me for the radiation treatments. I put on a gown and entered the CT room where the technicians informed me of the procedure. Step one was making a cradle for my head to sit in. This was done by making a foam mold from a liquid shaken up with a activator substance and pouring that onto a shelf beneath my head. The issue is that it probably heats up to over 110 deg F, while the plastic sets up and you cannot move your head for 15 minutes while it is setting making quite uncomfortable. After it sets up, they push you (on the mold) into the CT scanner and see how you line up by checking the images from the scanner. My images did not line up well. They ended up doing this three times and I was very hot and worn out doing this for over an hour. Then, came the real fun. That’s when they put a warm, plastic mesh mask over my face and connected it to the cradle and pushed me back into the CT scanner. I couldn’t see and started to panic. Moving around is not what they wanted me to do. All I really needed was a reassuring voice around me, telling me that I was OK and how much longer I would be in the machine. Finally, it was over and I was literally shaking as I walked out of the room. The technicians apologized profusely but I was still shaken badly. The real issue was that they were trying to train a new employee while working on me and their attention was split. We met again with Dr. DeMasi and he too apologized for the incident and assured me that nothing like this would happen during my treatments. This incident was the only negative that I can think of during my visit to the center. We took a taxi back to the hotel and had dinner and planned to go back to the hospital, the next day (Friday) for another.
We finished up with Dr. Nicholas’ staff by 11:45 AM and met a friend from the flow cytometry community who happens to work at the same hospital. Her name is Julie Auger and she, like all my network of flow cytometry people have been friends and colleagues for around 20 years or more. The three of us had lunch in the food court, caught up on old times and discussed the current situation and her willingness to help out in any way. Julie informed us that she had been treated at the same hospital and assured us that we were in good hands.
Dr. Nicholas’ staff had scheduled an appointment for me at 1:30 PM (same building) with the radiation oncologist, Dr. Vincenzo DeMasi, M.D. Dr. Nicholas’ team works closely with Dr. DeMasi and so he was quite aware of my situation. He and his associate examined me and let me know what the schedule was for the afternoon. It didn’t sound too bad or too long, but it turned out to be very, very tough on me.
The plan should have taken about 1.5 hours but it ended up being closer to 3 hours. They took me downstairs to the CT room for the purpose of making a mold of my head that would precisely align me for the radiation treatments. I put on a gown and entered the CT room where the technicians informed me of the procedure. Step one was making a cradle for my head to sit in. This was done by making a foam mold from a liquid shaken up with a activator substance and pouring that onto a shelf beneath my head. The issue is that it probably heats up to over 110 deg F, while the plastic sets up and you cannot move your head for 15 minutes while it is setting making quite uncomfortable. After it sets up, they push you (on the mold) into the CT scanner and see how you line up by checking the images from the scanner. My images did not line up well. They ended up doing this three times and I was very hot and worn out doing this for over an hour. Then, came the real fun. That’s when they put a warm, plastic mesh mask over my face and connected it to the cradle and pushed me back into the CT scanner. I couldn’t see and started to panic. Moving around is not what they wanted me to do. All I really needed was a reassuring voice around me, telling me that I was OK and how much longer I would be in the machine. Finally, it was over and I was literally shaking as I walked out of the room. The technicians apologized profusely but I was still shaken badly. The real issue was that they were trying to train a new employee while working on me and their attention was split. We met again with Dr. DeMasi and he too apologized for the incident and assured me that nothing like this would happen during my treatments. This incident was the only negative that I can think of during my visit to the center. We took a taxi back to the hotel and had dinner and planned to go back to the hospital, the next day (Friday) for another.
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