Memories of the Mask

Memories are strange creatures. They can be triggered by smell, a song, a person, or anything else that brings a memory from the past flooding through your mind. This is particularly true if the past event was one that brought a strong emotional response - either positive or negative. The memory may be of a past relationship, a loved-one who is no longer around, a special event, or sometimes a painful or difficult event in your life.

This happened to me a few nights ago. It was late and I was wasting time on Facebook before going to sleep. I was looking through a few short random videos. I came across a very short video about a gentleman who was receiving his last radiation treatment for cancer. In this short video they were unsnapping his radiation mask from the table and then removing the mask off of him. The video was only about 5 or 6 seconds long. Memories immediately flooded my mind from my cancer treatments 8 years ago. The man's mask immediately reminded me of my mask.

After checking the calendar, realized that 8 years ago today was my last radiation treatment for Stage IV Throat Cancer. My treatment plan included six chemotherapy treatments to assist the 35 radiation treatments.

Now, just having cancer is scary enough. When you know that you have a disease that will kill you if you do not get treatment for it will tend to shake you up pretty well. The chemo-treatments are scary even though you are sitting in a nice comfortable recliner with an IV hooked up to your arm. That is, it is not that bad until you see the nurse coming at you with a bag of poison to put into your IV.

Radiation treatment for people with cancer is another whole animal. You have to lie down on a table that is attached to this loud humming machine with its dangerous radiation. When the machine moves its head in place to beam the radiation in exactly measured amounts at you, your mind goes some pretty unpleasant places.

Remember when I was talking earlier about the short video I watched where they were unsnapping the cancer patient from the table? That is the part about radiation treatment for throat cancer patients that I did not tell you about. Because the radiation beam is so tightly calculated to reach the cancer without harming other body parts any more than necessary, they make a large mask that is made for you. This mask snaps down to the board so that you can not move your head, neck, or shoulders during treatment. If you look at the photo of my mask at the top of the page, you will see that it has holes in it. You can see a little bit with the mask holding you tightly to the table. You can talk a little bit but it is awkward. You can even breathe a little bit - but not too deeply. In other words, it is very confining, awkward, and uncomfortable. And did I mention that you can't move? It is one way to discover if you are claustrophobic or not.

And in case you are wondering, I do still have my mask. The picture at the top of the page is my personal radiation therapy mask. At the end of my treatment they gave it to me to keep. It now lives in my hallway at home as a constant reminder of the pain from the cancer and the horrible side effects of the treatments that I went through. It is also a reminder that I am still alive because of those treatments.