Today, May 10 was the first of 35 IMRT's and I must admit there was not much to it. The hospital is in London, Ontario and easy to get to. The highway to there starts 5 minutes from our place and is relatively low on traffic so as soon as I'm on it I use the speed control and can usually leave it on untill I get to London to turn off the highway and then again, it's only another 5 minutes to the Victoria London Cancer Clinic. I left an hour early because I need to drink around 350ml. water at least 45 minutes before the treatment and since I'm still somewhat incontinent, I was not sure if I could hold it that long. So I drank the water halfway there and I was okay with that. On arrival I hit the washroom, drained and then drank another glass. Being early on purpose allowed me the time to do this. Tomorrow I'll leave an hour later because now I know that I can hold it well into a full hour. (actually, that's a great relief on it's own)
Staff is good and right on time. Went to great lenghs to explain each and every move. Took new xrays and needed to make a small adjustment to the tiny tattoos and then it was all over in less then 15 minutes. Had a nice soft pillow and not uncomfortable at all. Only needed to take my shoes off and lower my pants down to my hidden willey. It's been very shy lately and didn't even bother to look up to see what was going on.
My Project: Got to thinking while driving back & forth to London, that I should document my "freedom of cancer' journey somehow and this is what I came up with. (stay with me will you?)
The one way trip is 105 km. (about 65 miles) So I devided the 105 km. by 35 trips, and that is 3km.
I'm not a photographer but I do have a cheap digital camera and a tripot and I'm going to take a picture, every 3 kilometers. On day 1, I took a picture of us leaving the garage of our apartment building. Tomorrow, Day 2, I'll take one 3 km. away, next day, it will be 6 km's, next at km marker 9 and so on. At the end of my 35 day trips, I'll be taking a picture of the hospital and hopefully some of the cancer unit staff. Hopefully they will all turn out, then I'll have them enlarged and framed, each with a bit of caption, related to that particlar day. Then I'll present the whole works to the hospital. I have already found a blank wall in the waiting area where they could be displayed as:
"A survivor's Journey to a new life" (or something like that)
Got to keep my mind busy and this should shorten each daily trip.
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