MRI, Chemo and Cheesecake

7:30 am this morning I was back at the imaging center for an MRI of my soft tissue around my neck. The tech handed me ear plugs, locked me down to the table with a head mask, and back into the tube I went. The very loud knocking and vibration sounds are reminders that that giant machine is hard at work, but I have no sense of how it works. So I can't attach the sounds to a mental image of what's happening. Instead, I try to drift away to somewhere better and not concentrate on the noises. After 15 minutes, I'm pulled out of the tube, but he's not done with me yet. While still locked down by my head mask, the tech injects me with a dye for contrast, using a needle instead of my brand new port. First attempt was a miss, of course! Second try, after I point out the exact spot other nurses have been successful, he's in, the dye is injected, and back into the tunnel for another round. This MRI is the last thing my radiologist was waiting for to start my treatments in combination with 6 sessions of chemo.

Later at the UCSD Cancer Center in Encinitas, I attended an hour long chemo education class which covered all of the side effects, making me a little uneasy. Two other new cancer patients were in there with me, a young dad with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and an older man whose diagnosis I did not learn. Afterwards we followed our cancer tour guide through the therapy treatment area that was filled with all types of people sitting in large chairs while their chemo medications dripped into their bodies. Some looked lonely, others looked stoic and even bored. I wonder which state of mind I will be in when I'm sitting there, meds tapped into my port, watching the new patients coming through.

A neighbor stopped by last night and brought me a homemade cheesecake. She says it's to help fatten me up before the treatments! It is delicious.