The End

Well, not the end, but I wanted to sound dramatic! I've finished my pings today and brought my mask home. One of tomorrow's projects will be working out how to photograph it.

This may sound weird but I am actually sorry that I won't see the various people at the hospital who looked after me. They were all very friendly and we had a good laugh. Considering that I was actually going there for radiotherapy treatment for brain cancer, that's not bad, is it?

I thanked them for their kind attention and brought them an extra cake!

Next stop is another MRI scan and a meeting with the radiotherapy consultant.

Waffle Iron

Tomorrow I have my last zap/ping and, no doubt, I shall be posting after that. But I thought I'd just fit one in beforehand anyway. I must admit that I feel very sad that I probably won't be seeing all the people there again as they've all been so friendly. They really have been nice people. Which is why I brought cakes in! Tomorrow will be interesting because one of the staff asked if it were possible to do a nice cake without using eggs. My Mum took up the challenge but wasn't overly impressed with the results. We'll see what the hospital staff think.

Anyway, after tomorrow's zap I have to have another MRI scan at some point and then they can decide what to do next.

The reason for the title of this post, BTW, is because my forehead looks a little like I fell asleep on a waffle iron. I have this strange, tanned bit of my head - strange because there are holes in the tan which are due to the mask. It's all minor, but funny!

Almost done!

I'm only talking about the current set of pinging I'm getting. There's only about 4 more daily zaps and that's it. Well, it's not. I've then got to have an MRI scan to see what effect all this zapping has had on my tumour, which hopefully will be positive. That's positive for me, not for the tumour...

As I've mentioned, one of the side effects of the radiotherapy is tiredness. But what wasn't discussed is how that can be a real irritation. (I choose my words carefully because I feel I've been really lucky with the way things have gone).

Anyway, the tiredness kicks in at about 4pm and while I'm still at home, I sleep for an hour or two. Not sure what I'll do when I return to work! But the other effect is that I now start waking up at 3am, 4am etc, and I don't know whether it's better just to get up at these times, because it's very difficult getting back to sleep. Plus I'm trying to normalise my sleep pattern and this isn't making it easy.

But, Hell, if that's the worst I have to deal with, I'm getting it easy!

Poseur time

While I've been lying there, being zapped (or "pinged" as I like to call it now), I've been trying to think what the noise of the pinging machine (apparently caused by the MLC - cf multi-leafed collimator) reminds me of. And although I've described it previously as a carrot grater, that sounded too unsophisticated. Well, no, inaccurate is more - erm - accurate. Anyway, the MLC sounds more like someone enthusiastically grating nutmeg. All you need to do is imagine a yummy egg-custard or a lovely, creamy cappuchino while you're being pinged and, apart from the disappointment you'll feel when you slide out from the CT machine to find there's nothing waiting for you, you're fine. I'm sure if you bribed the radiology people properly, you'd probably find that a nice latte could be waiting for you anyway.

No news is good news

It may be apparent that my postings here have become less frequent. That's for no other reason than there's nothing to report, really. I have been extremely fortunate that I don't seem to have suffered major side-effects, and even the other ones are minor. Obviously.

As I wrote in a previous post, I have lost a little bit of hair but only around one temple. When Nick looked at it yesterday he was well pleased. "What a lovely straight line." He said. He then told me that that indicated the accuracy of the zapping. He had also told me previously that it is possible to develop a bald patch diametrically opposite the main target. When we looked today, it appeared that nothing had happened on that score. He then told me that it was quite rare for that to happen, but that he always told people about this possibility because there were times when it did happen and the patient and/or their friends then got all pannicky, thinking that the patient was being zapped in the wrong place! Which, in certain ways, is understandable.

Hair today...

I've just begun to lose a little hair. Not much and, it was assisted by my other half 'gently' tweaking it out. It did come out quite easily though so it wasn't like it was being wrenched. So I now have one temple which is slightly less hursuit than the other. But it's barely noticeable. And the hair was grey before so it's hardly a loss! If that's the only side-effect I suffer I will be very happy.

So this is what it looks like now.

How neat is that? Even the biopsy scar is very tidy!

And, generally, I am happy. I know I'm tempting fate badly, but I feel like I've gone past the nadir of what's happening, and I'm halfway through treatment and I've been seizure-free for over 4 months now. Only another 8 months to go before I can get my driving licence back! So, all is good.

Yaay.