It never became easy for me. I wish it did. I wish I was tougher. The first day of treatment, they put the mask over my face and then smashed it down as hard as they could to bolt it to the table. I asked them if it had to be that tight and they said yes. They don't want my head to move at all. Every moment of every treatment was a battle.
Modern medicine is amazing, however. I was put into a room with ten inch walls filled with lead. Even the door was ten inches wide. When my mask was securely on and the door shut, a large robot would wander all around my head shooting my tumor with radiation. Every 45 seconds, these two camera-looking things on each side of the wall would take x-rays of my head to make sure the robot was shooting the radiation in the right spot.
The last day, my mask didn't feel as tight. I could even open my mouth a little bit. They stopped the robot five minutes after it started and came in and asked me if I was okay. I said, "Yes, as good as I can be" and they said I was moving a lot. I didn't think I was moving at all! I asked them if that meant the robot was shooting the wrong place and they said "No, it just would make your treatment much longer since the robot would adjust itself to my movements." She said that even a millimeter of a movement would lengthen the treatment. They tried telling me the mask was my friend but it sure was a difficult friend, something I just could not get use to at all.
The nurse took my vitals when I was all done. Her prescription for me was a nice long massage with aromatherapy That sounded wonderful to me. It is amazing what a toll stress takes on your body. This last treatment, before it even began, I was trembling from head to toe. I couldn't even keep my eyes shut during treatment because they were fluttering so badly.
Anyways, I am very thankful it is all over. Now we wait. If it killed the pituitary, it will take six months to ten years to know. I am not sure about the optic nerve. My vision is good so far. Knowing whether or not it stopped my tumor from ever growing will probably take years since it is a slow growing tumor anyways.
Thank you for all your prayers and support. I never would have been able to handle this week without God's strength since every single minute of the 48 minutes of every treatment I wanted to raise my little blue circle {what they had me hold so I can tell them by lifting it up if I needed help} and call it quits.
And after you have suffered a little while,
the God of all grace,
who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ,
will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
I Peter 5:10
