Radiotherapy week 3

A Happy New Year!
I wish the year of 2012 will bring hopes and joys to all of you.

The first radiotherapy appointment of the year of 2012 was on January 4th. I was feeling quite well over the short 'winter break' I had from the therapy, but as soon as the therapy resumed, throat sore, light fevers and light nausea also came back. I discussed my symptoms with my doctor, and he said they may be from radiotherapy, or they could simply be cold. I was also guessing that my symptoms may be from Pavlovian effect caused by the past chemotherapy madness, but I'm not sure.

Radiotherapy and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD)

I guess I still am an engineer. Despite the side effects, radiotherapy stimulates much more interests than chemotherapy. First of all, the radiotherapy machine is as overwhelming as CT scan machine, and it has a large arm that rotates to aim X-ray correctly to my body. The machine reminds me greatly of XRD machine. I feel like a test sample in XRD when I'm being exposed to X-ray.

During the treatment, I am fixed in place on a stage by a plastic cover unique to my face that fits perfectly (Left image). Again, it's like fixing a sample on the stage for XRD machine! It's nice to be excited about the treatment, although I'm sure it'll still be even nicer to be done.

"Wakame-Chan" Hair

I am exposed to X-ray radiation from both from front and back of my body. Currently the area exposed to radiation is quite large and it is schedule to minimize and pin down the area starting from mid next week. Because lower back of my head is also exposed to strong radiation, I felt burn-like pain and started shedding around that area like crazy last week. I no longer have the burning pain but now I have close to no hair on the lower back of my head. My sister said my hair could look like a cartoon character, Wakame-Chan (Right image) if I cut my hair shorter. I believe this is a rare opportunity to look just like her, but I declined my sister's suggestion.