Breast out, immobilised. How’s the radiation small talk?
So I’ve done a week of radiation and struggling with what’s normal. People here often say the staff are so lovely and supportive blah blah and have effusive praise. There is no conversation or small talk with me, they talk to each other but not to me. But quite frankly, how else could this go? I don’t have language for this situation anyway. I’m still don’t see any part of this as “normal” or even my. “new normal”, because it’s not. MKes breast lying on a board high up off the ground under a horrible machine. It’s terrible. So if you’re managing some kind of quality interpersonal communication with the therapists I take my hat off to you. Fortunately the treatment doesn’t take long, so I can’t imagine time to make conversation anyway. What do you even talk about? There is no team, or team approach. I see different staff everyday, and it’s really feels like just another day at the “cancer factory”. This is a high end private facility.Rise of the machines😩🤬🥴🤢
Is anyone else terrified of the scanners, the beam, the other thing that’s round? It’s been building for weeks. I can call it out right now. This is my first “phobia”. It’s not claustrophobia. Just looking at them terrifies me. And so does everything else - the powerlessness, it’s impersonal and cold, it’s poorly organised, the staff nothing special, not helpful and simply got a job to do, and seem completely unaware of how utterly horrible the machines look, how disempowered and vulnerable a persons may feel. I have endured this for all the presurgery scans of machines I don’t even know the name of. And then some staffer asks me to tell them what tests I’ve had. I don’t know! My wallet knows. I’ll ask my wallet. How bout I do that? WTF do you not have records of what is happening to me? Now the idea of my ugly fat self and my ugly fat disfigured boob popped out and exposed while lying on some fugly board attached to what looks like an instrument of death, in a fugly room while people stare at me, and doing it every day, yeah that’s more than I can do. I’ve read about shorter durations etc for radiation, but nobody has mentioned to me who gets this? Why not me? I am starting radiation therapy next week. Has anyone ever bailed on radiation? ie not complete it? Is there a way to make this less terrifying? I could give it a go but may quit. I don’t think I can do it. I wasnt scared or anxious when being told of the breast cancer diagnosis, or and wasn’t anything other than upbeat during the surgery. This machine scanner boobs out bullshit. Nup, nada, nope, That’s how I feel today.