LifeNow

Last week was my first week of radiation therapy – though not a full week. The first session was Wednesday, so I completed three sessions. Today I completed one more, so I've finished 10% of the required sessions – four of forty. Yay!

Though each session is normally about an hour long, only about five minutes of the hour is actually receiving radiation. The bulk of the hour has do with the bladder – when I check in, I wait for someone to tell me to go to the bathroom and empty my bladder and then to drink a full cup of water. My radiation therapy then happens after waiting about forty-five minutes. The point of this for the bladder to be at least partially filled.

The most dramatic sensation of my actually radiation therapy comes from my pelvic cast. When initially put on my bare pelvis, it is always a bit cold – brrh! As for the actual radiation, I keep wondering if I should feel anything but so far I don't feel anything as the machine rotates 360 degrees around my pelvis, beaming radiation from multiple directions.

Wednesday and Friday and today I walked home from the Sloan Kettering Haupt Pavilion, where I get the therapy. It's a bit more than three miles and includes crossing Central Park. Thursday, I took one of the buses that takes folks from East Side to West Side. Due to traffic, the buses rarely move faster than walking, except across Central Park. The park crossing is on a road with no intersections so they can move fairly fast. As the road is below the park surface – but not in a tunnel – those walking around the park just have bridges to cross the road. It is the fast crossing of the park that makes the bus faster than just walking. Of course, the fastest alternative is simply to take the subway, which still involves about seven-tenths of a mile – but only about 35 minutes door-to-door.

So, as of today, this is actually starting to feel like a routine around which I can continue to schedule my other daily activities. That feels like progress!