T-21. Yesterday, Deb and I have crossed off number “12 “on the cancer calendar my granddaughter Adela made for me. Though I officially began this ride on October 17^th, when I was diagnosed with my cancer, the treatment protocol didn’t start until November 24^th. With weekend and holiday reprieves from the daily doses, yesterday was day 12 of treatment and what I call Double Tap Wednesdays. If you’ve been reading my journal as it’s grown, you know that I have taken to sometimes, well okay, most of the time give names to the experiences of this trip. I am calling the overall experience My Cancer Journal, while the treatment phase is Mr. Toads Wild Ride, the twenty-four hours following chemo became the Chemo Express, and since Wednesdays are the day of the week when I receive both radiation and chemo, Double Tap Wednesday. Deb worries that I am being a bit cavalier at times, but when going through cancer, the best chance for hope is to remain optimistic.  This requires being able to add a touch of humor. Naming these junctures helps to create opportunities to chuckle.

Yesterday was Double Tap Wednesday. The day technically began at 3:30 am, lying awake in bed contemplating how this cancer has seeped into my life. Abandoning any hope of grabbing any additional sleep, at 5:30 am, I got up, got dressed, and headed out to shovel the two inches of snow that had accumulated on our driveway overnight. Cancer has its way of making you appreciate the little things and moving that powdery white snow around was one of them. The quiet of a predawn morning, the shadows the porchlight cast across the snow, the scrape of the shovel against the concrete driveway, all seemed to offer the peace I couldn’t find in bed this morning.

We arrived at the clinic just before 9:00 am to start what would be another long Wednesday. I check in at the oncology desk greeted by my favorite receptionist. She greets me, as she does every day, with her spirit lifting smile. I do what I always do, I flirt, eventually give her my last name and birthdate, which being my ticket to enter the “long hall walking” door. As the door clicks open, Deb and I begin what feels like “the dead man walking” prison scene from the movies. The walk takes us down three very plain hallways eventually arriving at our destination, the cancer waiting room. The room is full this morning. We are all waiting for the same thing, one more dose of radiation, one more day marked off our countdown calendars. What I tell you I am trying to do each day will come as no surprise to those of you who know me. No one in this room ever talks. They just sit silent, staring at their phones, reading a book, or just staring straight ahead. I try to engage. Don’t we want to talk about our lives, who we are, where we’re from? We don’t need to talk about cancer, just something, anything, and…. It hasn’t happened, at least not yet. I have twenty-one more days to crack this wall of solitude. Wish me luck or beg me to stop. Eventually my name is called, and I tip toe silently from the room. A reprieve for all those who feared I might pick on them to get the room talking.

I am now being led to the radiation room to be zapped. I passed down two more boringly plain rooms before reaching the huge steel door. It is rolled open for now and invites me, if I dare, to step into its little chamber and have a go at Mr. Toads Wild Ride. I am greeted by three operators who will very soon make a dash for the safe side of that big steel door. They help me onto the table and position my head in the hard foam cradle designed to keep me aligned. Next come my tooth guards and then the mask. Calling it a mask doesn’t do it justice. The thing covers me from the top of my head all the way to my midsection. With my head and shoulders now covered by the mask, I both audibly hear and feel the loud pops as the mask is snapped into place and I am trapped. Immovable, I am now ready for Mr. Toad. He is a behemoth and he smiles down at me as the green light comes on and I see my reflection on his mirrored face. Slowly he begins to start his first revolution around me as I lie on his table. For the next fifteen minutes I listen to the faint sound of music in the background as Mr. Toad whirrs and circles my head, all the while zapping my tumor with radiation. Eventually I imagine I hear the big steel door roll open and a smiling attendant looks down at me and tells me we are finished. The mask snaps loose and the ride is over. I am free, that is free to go to the next phase of this day.

When we first arrived at the clinic today, my first stop was at the lab where I was fitted with this lovely port in my arm. That port will come into play during my afternoon chemo procedure. Our next appointment is a consultation with our oncology nurse practitioner. She is evaluating how my treatments are progressing, answering our questions about the same, and after being assured that everything is on track, we head up to the third-floor oncology wing. Here another waiting room awaits us, but this one is much nicer than the waiting room we occupied earlier. This one has comfy seats and spacious windows with views of the clinic’s campus. This is your first sign that chemo will be different than radiation. No less daunting, after all I am about to get two liters of cisplatin, my chemo serving of choice. Cisplatin is basically poison. As my nurse pulls on rubber gloves and protective clothing, it drives that message home. It will work at poisoning the tumor while radiation will battle to shrink it. A powerful team at war inside my throat.

The process of receiving this potent drug is at least comfortable. No strapping me down. We are ushered to a comfortable though small cubicle with an easy chair for me and another sitting area for Deb. We are asked if we’d like any coffee or other beverages and I am even offered snacks. Once I am hooked up and the fluids are draining into me via the port in my arm, I lean back, enjoy my music, and read a book. The whole process will take around two hours during which time I needed to produce 500 ml of pee. I am told to not hold back as I cannot finish the protocol until I fill the quota. In the end, this will take me two trips to successfully pull off. I’m a good pee producer, but not quite MVP one tripper level. And thus, about 3:00 pm, my quota met, the Cisplatin coursing through my kidneys, our stay is complete. We are free to leave the building, until tomorrow of course. Good news, it’s just radiation. Easy day!