Thankful Thursday

[mdlbear]

Today I am grateful for...

• My radiation treatments finally getting started. NO thanks for my digestive system, which appears to be taking lessons from snails and sloths.
• Getting what seems to be pretty accurate timing, based on the second one. Good for planning the rest of my day.
• Ticia. (Bronx is not particularly cuddly. His loss.)
• My support groups. I should try to find a support group for procrastinators. Tomorrow, maybe. Or next week?
• Discovering another song that can make me cry (which may sound weird, but it isn't) -- Janis Ian's "The Last Train".
• (ETA) m for introducing me to Monkey Grind Espresso. Walking distance from home.

Comments

[mdlbear]

Thanks for the advice. Whenever I see "LINAC" the first thing I think of is SLAC

[acelightning73]

They use a LINAC to produce a beam of high-energy electrons. This bombards a metal target and produces X rays, which they constrain with lead apertures to only affect the target area. (I spent a lot of time geeking out with the rad techs.) It's a bit primitive, but it beats using a gamma emitting isotope. (I got that too - to make sure there was no cancer left in my abdomen, I also got "the iridium dildo", a pellet of the isotope is inserted into a carrier inside my body by a spring-powered device. The tech asked me what kind of background music I wanted. I said "EDM, because it sort of fits with all this scientific equipment." He was pleased; the previous patient had requested gospel music.

And I remember seeing a science program on TV, or maybe reading in a magazine, about how the LINAC worked (and I also now know why they don't use cyclotrons for the purpose.)

[mdlbear]

The version I'm getting is called "Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy" (yours might well have been, too) -- the shielding blocks are moved continuously to contour the beam while the source rotates around you. It makes two passes -- counter-clockwise and clockwise. Presumably that's so they don't have to give the wires more than a half-twist in each direction.

The whole thing is fascinating.

[kshandra]

Ogredude posted a link to this video on the Callahan's Discord a few months back; it's an older version of the module, but it gets the idea across.

[acelightning73]

THe beam head revolved aroud me helically, head to toe then back up. When they were irradiating my breasts, I could see into the beam head and watch metal slats moving into different arrangements. I couldn't quite feel the radiation, but I heard the transformers and the high-voltage switching.