Summary of A Sample Treatment (Day 2) - movies and photos

Day 2. Less anxiety than the prior day. Here I'll post movies and photos of the experience with an attempt to explain things. This will be a rather extensive post.














This first picture is of the "gantry room". This is where I go to lie down in my pod and the radiation is administered. My head will be in the foreground and my feet towards that light. It would seem that the rays are directed from that light but, no, they come from the side -- directly pointed at either my right hip or my left hip. The days are alternated. The first day, I got zapped from my right side and today from the left. Most types of radiation are "fixed beam" where the person is rotated and the beam remains stationery. Here, I am placed at a certain spot but the beam equipment itself is rotated -- either 180 degrees to my right or to my left. I'll later post a video clip of that rotation -- the entire circular area in which I am placed rotates around my body.






But, first, here are some video clips of the display they



have of the entire cyclotron machine which creates, accelerates, and distributes the proton rays to the 3 "gantries" or treatment rooms.






Here is a video clip as I first enter the treatment room, known as "Gantry 3". These folks in this video were on the Today show and NBC news when George Lewis, an NBC reporter, went through this treatment. I also heard a story, to be confirmed later, that one of the female



technicians, ended up marrying one of the patients. It was not "Olivia", who is shown in this clip . Whatever the case, that technician got to know her future husband from the bottom up.












Here I am with the "picture de maison" just before the treatment starts. On my left is the equipment that will deliver the proton rays to my left hip. Stay tuned, I plan to post later a video clip of when everybody leaves the room (just like with xrays) and I am zapped. It's anticlimactic. I will also later post a detailed description of my understanding of how the equipment works.













Molds are made to "conform" the rays to the size and shape of my prostate. Those molds channel the rays to just the prostate area. I don't have a good picture of the molds yet (one is called the "aperture" and the other the "bolus" -- more later on these) but they are kept in these containers which slide into the "proton gun". More on this later as I learn more how it works.

This blue apparently waxy thing ("bolus") is used to vary the depth of how far the protons go into my body. I will post more on this later.

Now, I'm going to show you a picture of the balloon soon. You don't have to look but it's really no big deal. Remember? It is inserted in my arse and is inflated with water in order to provide some degree of separation between my prostate and my rectum in order to avoid the proton rays from striking my rectum, or at least giving some breathing room for the treatment. But

first, here is another picture of the equipment that is the last step just before the protons are beamed into me.

Ok, here it is further down, close your eyes -- the balloon. If you don't want to know, fast forward through this next part. This is for future proton patients who want to know what it is really like and what the details of the ballon are. Some folks have a phobia for this and knowledge is power as well as comfort. I also plan to have a future post with more details about this part of the operation as well as the other parts. This post is just a summary of a treatment.

Really, this guy is not Dr. Kevorkian although he looks awfully sinister in this picture. He actually looks like a high school kid who used to work for me who is now a lawyer -- I know, I know.....just desserts. (I am a lawyer.)

Right after I took this picture, I got slimed. Really. The slime dropped right on top of me. You can see which part goes up my arse. The slimy part. You can see the "syringe" that contains about 1/2 cup (120 mL) of water (tap water) that goes into the balloon. Once up my arse, the syringe pushes the water in to enlarge my rectum to keep the protons away from parts that they, and I, don't want them to be. The tube is clamped off with the clamp you see to keep the water from being pushed out of my over-anxious rectum. The balloon, tube, and clamp (I presume -- details to come later) sit underneath me during the treatment and then is all removed after treatment. It is really not bad, as I said earlier, it is no more discomforting than having your teeth cleaned. And for those of you proton patients who have had DRE's and/or biopsies, trust me, it is much better than any of those.

Ok, the rest of you can open your eyes now.

And finally, when I can get it uploaded, I will have a video of when I was receiving the proton rays themselves. It is also quite boring but you can listen to the sounds. Only hear a whirring sound (the "modulater" turning) and then a series of beeps. It is the series of beeps that indicates when I am receiving the proton rays. We'll get into these details in later posts.