Day One

Day One of treatment probably turned out as well as could be expected. Our first adventure was in the radiation department. A couple of weeks ago Dallas was fitted with a special mask which forms to his face and then clamps down to the treatment table. The mesh like mask has special markers on it and holds his head and neck in absolute stillness during treatment. The worst part of radiation is getting used to the mask - it's pretty tight - the treatment itself lasts only a a few minutes or so. I had the advantage of sitting outside with the techs and watching the Big Guy on camera to make sure that he was behaving himself (so far so good!). One radiation down - 5 more weeks to go. One of the most upsetting parts of the day for me was to gaze up from the radiation table and see a baby's mobile toy - some of their customers are so very young that it's heart breaking.

The chemo room is very pleasant. The Big Guy has his own lazy boy chair complete with IV and a chair for me - almost like home but with lots of interruptions! We have our favourite nurse already - we only had her for part of the treatment today. Dallas's chemo is in two parts - one is like a regular IV that we'll go for during the next four days - it takes about 45 minutes to run through. The other one is a take-out IV model - he will have this pump attached for the next four days. So far so good...of course they said that side effects could appear but at least we got thru the first day without any major problems. I'm sure that from now on Dallas will be tired a lot - he's trying to talk me into a fishing trip this weekend but I put the kibosh to that right away - party pooper that I am! They also have really good anti-nausea drugs at the cancer clinic - if Dallas doesn't need these perhaps we'll save for a rough water fishing trip once he's better!

More later....Love, Patty