Next stop radiation therapy...

Sigh....I suppose it's time for a breast cancer update. I have met with the oncologist twice now. He is very personable and is the first doctor who has taken the time to explain everything to me. He seems very young (don't the oncologists look young these days!). I had a CT scan last Tuesday and “markers” were put in place. These are very small, freckle-size, tattoos that help the radiologist pinpoint exactly where the radiation should be administered. My radiation therapy will be carried out at the BC Cancer Agency. It's a state of the art facility with everything under one roof. This cancer business still feels new to me and both my visits had a surreal aspect; an intimate attention to detail combined with the detached aura of a dream.I am scheduled to begin radiation therapy next week. I’m still not sure for how long; daily sessions for 4 weeks or perhaps longer. A strange little adventure that is going to be, I’m sure.

The building itself is like a complicated maze... I go to the main reception area and answer a couple of questions. I am told to go to the second floor, and a volunteer takes me up the elevator and to another reception area. This receptionist directs me to another waiting area; “Go down there, turn right, then left and it will be on your left”. I follow these directions and find myself in a hallway with yet another reception area. I can see several small waiting rooms leading off the hallway. A volunteer sitting at a desk at the crossroads asks me if I need help and, as she directs my attention to signs above our heads, she asks me what colour I am. The sign has a four identical symbols of a person in a chair, one red, one green, one blue, and one yellow, each with accompanying arrows. I explain that no-one has given me a colour. There is some confusion. Apparently, I should have been assigned a colour. The volunteer repeats that I am supposed to have a colour, that the building is a maze, I will need a colour. Oh no, is the system breaking down? Thankfully, a woman, (nurse?) comes by and puts some order to our mini-chaos. She takes the piece of paper I am clutching that has my “client number” on it (and is pink) and disappears down a hallway. I stand waiting and take the opportunity to look at the “History of BC Radiotherapy” poster and wonder about a couple of complicated steel hospital gurneys with no mattresses that stand, like museum exhibits, against the plain white walls. Soon the woman returns and shows me into a small waiting room. She tells me that I will most likely be “yellow”. And I have no idea what that means.

There are two women already in the waiting room. Neither one looks up nor attempts to make eye-contact. I sit down and listen. The building has a constant hum, like a non-stop fan. The constant drone puts a damper on every sound, but I make out a muffled cacophony of familiar noises; keys jangling, laughter, footsteps, telephones ringing, the clickety-clack of a dot matrix printing machine. A few minutes go by and a technician comes for me and takes me to the CT area. Before I have my scan I am shown to a small room inhabited by a "cosy" floral couch, a coffee table, and a TV/DVD. A couple of Monet prints hang on the wall. Prints that for me have become synonymous with hospital waiting rooms and boredom. I watch the DVD. It’s a sort of, “Mrs Jenkins goes for Radiation Therapy” public information film. The "actors" (namely radiation therapists etc.) play themselves; self-consciously reciting memorized scripts like a high-school drama class. They explain the breast radiation procedure at BCCA. Seems straight forward enough. Following this I am shown into the CT room. Everyone is smiling and friendly and putting me at my ease. There are four people in the room. I have never shown my breasts to so many different people than in the past months. Anyway, the scan was quick and painless. Nothing to worry about.

I was shown around the maze a little more. BCCA appears to run like a well-oiled machine. It is bustling and teeming with people who each have their own story; hundreds of variations on the theme of cancer. We calculate our journey through the maze, relying on friendly volunteers to direct us to small waiting rooms that attempt to be cheerful and calming, putting our faith in the skill of oncologists, physicists, and therapists. In fact, so many people go through the building and there are so many stories that in the face of it, mine seems commonplace and ordinary and not really about me. And despite accepting the truth about cancer; that it attacks randomly and without discrimination, I still found myself thinking, "But what the hell am I doing here?”