1st treatment

We picked up my mom at the Sacramento airport Sunday night, and then checked in to a really nice suite that Angel’s uncle and aunt John and Gail put us up in, right in downtown Sacramento. We’re right next to the drawbridge that crosses the Sacramento River, and right down the street from the state capitol building. John and Gail, if you’re reading this, thank you so much, this place is great. And there are some other pretty nice perks of this place…free breakfast every morning (a really good breakfast, too) and free cocktail hour (two hours, actually) every evening. Come to think of it, we had free breakfast and free cocktail hour the whole time at Ben and Katherine’s house too. Pretty awesome!!

We woke up Monday morning, had a nice breakfast, then hit the road. We first drove down to the UC Davis campus to make sure we knew where to go and where to park for our 4:00 appointment. We followed the directions through the campus, and as we made the last turn to the Crocker Nuclear Laboratory, there was a fire truck, a police car, and an ambulance at the back of the building. That was a great sign, huh?!

Once we made sure we were in the right place, we headed down south a little bit to visit…the Jelly Belly factory! It was a pretty neat tour, but there should have been an opportunity to ask questions. For example, “how can you say that buttered popcorn is one of the top three best-selling flavors when it obviously sucks?” At the end of the tour there was a tasting area where you can try all the flavors you want. They also sell discount bags of Belly Flops, the reject pieces that aren’t awesome enough to deserve the final Jelly Belly stamp. I’ll still enjoy eating the ugly ones!

From there we hit up an olive oil and vinegar tasting, which was pretty neat, then grabbed lunch and took a brief nap in the car before heading back to UC Davis for our appointment. Rounding that last corner this time, we noticed that the emergency vehicles were gone, which was a pretty inviting sign. We waited a while in the lobby before being called back to get the show on the road. We walked through the very industrial-looking building, past the proton accelerator, and around the corner to the small eye patient treatment area. Remember, this is not a medical facility; it’s a nuclear research laboratory in the middle of a college campus.

First, more dilation drops in my eye, and then a crap-load of numbing drops to numb my eyeball and my eyelids. I took a seat in the chair as they prepared to strap me in. Even with the eye and nose holes cut in the mask this time, it’s still a little unnerving having your head locked into such a restrained position, so tightly that my cheek fat was squeezing over the edges of the mask. The bite block was next, then a series of x-rays to make sure I could get my eye (and the tantalum rings) into a position that would match their 3-d plan. Angel and my mom were in the room up to this point getting these pictures, but then they had to leave to another area.

Next Dr. Mishra installed the eyelid retractors. These weren’t highly painful, but a sort of mildly painful, really weird feeling. Back to the emergency vehicles we saw earlier…an earlier patient in the day started feeling nauseous when they tried to put in her retractors, so they let her rest in the waiting area for a while. During this time the patient’s mom got light headed and passed out. At least the proton beam didn’t go crazy and start shooting people!

I have no clue how far my eyelids were stretched, but it felt pretty far. After it was all over I asked Dr. Mishra if she would take a picture at my next treatment. She laughed a little like she thought I was weird for wanting to see that, but she said that she would take the picture. With the eyelid retractors in place I had to rotate my eye as far up as I could to see the flashing red light and hold it there while they did more x-rays. I think I need to exercise my eyeball-moving muscles or something, because it was hard to hold it in that position for very long. Once they verified that my eye was in the right position, someone in another room drew a circle around my pupil on a monitor that was showing a zoomed-in view of my eyeball. That would be how they could tell if my eye was moving too much and they would have to shut the beam off. Angel and my mom were able to watch everything from a set of four monitors showing different angles.

Everyone left the room when the treatment was about to start, and Dr. Mishra talked to me through an intercom system. She told me when the beam would start, and then she gave me several more updates throughout the 90 seconds that the beam was on, so I knew how much longer I’d need to focus on not moving my eye.

When the time was over, they came back in the room and released my head so I could swallow and take some deep breaths. That was it! Only about 20 minutes total. I then got another eye patch to keep on for 30 minutes, just to make sure I didn’t scratch my eye while it was numb.

I felt nothing at all as the beam was on. For all I know they could be trying to kill the tumor with a placebo effect! Just kidding, I’m sure they wouldn’t do that. I didn’t feel any side effects other than a headache. So really, I’m very lucky for having a cancer that can be treated with a proton beam rather than plaque radiation or with chemotherapy. Many other people have had much more difficult challenges. With how easy this is it almost feels like I’m cheating!