The sky is crystal blue and fresh. A few wispy clouds hang there momentarily, like fog evaporating. Over here are the dogwood blossoms. I can’t decide what shade of dark pink accents the underside of the white petals. Over there the green aspen leaves are still, heart shaped, not quaking.
This is what they want me to see. Nature and clear light. The facsimile of outdoors above, not the surrounding square acoustic ceiling panels with fire sprinklers and other necessities. A section of wall leading into this large cool room is carved like white, wind riven sand dunes. Some thoughtful human has wanted to give the feel of wind and water to counter the giant machine that is the room. The smooth machine arms wait ready to take me in, arms that rotate and aim cameras and shoot invisible rays.
Blue skies
Smiling at me
Nothing but blue skies
Do I see
Quickly the routine becomes smooth: check in, go back to the changing room, remove everything from the waist up, slip on two gowns. The first one opens in the back, the outer one opens at the front. The gowns are always white with pale blue twinkly stars. Placid, neutral, soft and crinkly from the laundry. I use the house number from my childhood home as the combination for the locker. The restroom is empty, so I pee and am freshly amused by the sign above the toilet: “NO LUSH OWLS IN THE TOLE.” Someone had taken the time to scrape out select letters of the more common admonition on the blue plastic sign.
I sit and wait close to the hallway for nurse Tina or one of the techs to come and get me. I flip through the high-toned magazines like Gentry and Travel and Leisure. This is a fancy waiting room. I rifle through my bag and put on petunia pink tinted lip balm. I smile and nod to, but do not strike up conversation with, the others in their gowns. This is how I become a patient.
Lucky for me this is a short run. Five sessions, fifteen minutes each, partial breast radiation after a lumpectomy. Clean margins, only one lymph node taken. Early stage one cancer plucked out of me. Lucky girl, lucky duck, lucky charm.
Ponloeu and Julie greet me like coworkers on a brief project, friendly and focused. Shoes off, bag down, outer gown shucked. I ascend to the table using the little step stool, and the white paper crinkles as I lie down on my back. He is always on my left and she is always on my right. They lift the back of the gown off the table, so they can see the tiny blue tattoos on my sides. Ponloeu has me slide my left arm out of the sleeve to bare my breast and places the tracker thing that is the size and shape of a garage door opener left of center on my ribcage. The weight is comforting, rising and falling as I breathe. Both arms are up now, my hands loose on the grips above my head. Julie moves the flesh of my arms around until things are just so. The table moves back into the machine and the rotating arms come up and around me for an air hug.
The techs go off to command central right outside the room. Julie’s clear voice comes over the speaker, telling me to “inhale hold breathe” for every film they capture. No commas, it’s that quick. They compare them to the plan made a month ago, when they took my measurements and gave me three dot tattoos and taught me to fill my lungs most of the way, not too much, not too little. Sometimes after the films it takes a while when nothing happens. This is when I look up at the dogwood petals and think about pink. Julie tells me they are waiting for the radiation oncologist to look at the films before they do the actual treatment. I imagine them talking about Game of Thrones or holiday plans. I say “okay” and go back to looking at the sky, trying not to move my head or arms or anything.
Ponloeu announces that this is now the treatment. The mechanical arms rotate and move into place. I have no idea where the beams are coming from, which angle they are doing when. Sometimes it comes from the ceiling. Some brilliant engineers have devised my plan – the angles, duration, intensity, sequence. He tells me to inhale and hold.
This is when I start counting. They’ve trained me to be still and hold my breath for up to forty seconds. Fortunately, the longest count here is thirteen. Here’s how I count. Below the blue sky panels, there are two round signal lights. The one on the right reads BEAM ON and flashes red when they are sending the danger rays into my flesh. It flashes about once a second. I watch that, feel my heart beating, and blink a lot until someone tells me to exhale.
‘Beam on’ sounds like an odd British affirmation. Keep Calm and Beam On. One of my assignments is to live well and let people see my light, so it fits. I can send out my sunshiny rays gently, diffusely, warmly. Not like these concentrated sun daggers meant to zap rogue cells and burn, baby, burn.
The other light, also round, reads BRAIN LAB. I’m grateful I don’t have to know what that is. It must have to do with the terrifying white mesh face cages, kind of like fencer’s masks, but for neck and head. I ask Ponloeu about them. He explains that they are molded to the individual patient’s face, and on the rack I see surnames written on the cages. They snap onto a frame on the table, so the patient doesn’t move their face and neck during radiation. Grateful that’s not me.
No, I’m lucky and plucky. I rest into the support of the table and imagine Quan Yin pouring healing waters where the sun daggers are sent. I try not to laugh thinking of a line of emojis: brain, Labrador retriever, super smiley face. BRAIN LAB BEAM ON. I think of all the people praying for me, sending me healing wishes, seeing me happy and well. I think of my 99% well body, Julie’s calm voice on the intercom, the midnight blue of her and Ponloeu’s scrubs.
Ponloeu says, “That’s it.” And I hop off the table, throw my outer gown on, grab my bag and thank him and Julie. After the last treatment, I put my hands on my heart and say to my techs, “You guys are great!” It’s back to the dressing room, and with great satisfaction I stuff the gowns down into the hamper. Two down, three to go, first week done. I put on bra and shirt and scarf and jewelry, a striptease in reverse. I look in the mirror and whisper, “Good job!” This is how I become just me again.
I arise from the basement on the elevator and walk out to fresh air and to find my ride. The love sandwich to this foray in radiation land is riding to and fro with my writing friends. The poet sits in her car during my brief treatments and meditates, sending me healing qi. The writer baker prefers to sit in the waiting room to be near me while traveling the globe with a copy of National Geographic. When it’s done, the last Friday, we celebrate by trying a new Turkish restaurant. Bright flavors and colors – the smoked yogurt with Aleppo cucumbers, the pork kebabs with yellow harissa, and the kale and tahini phkali. The nourishment of growing deeper roots with my friends. We talk about travel and love and gratitude and grief.
This treatment time is just a moment in the long river of my life.
BEAM ON
BEAM ON
BEAM ON
BEAM ON
BEAM ON
BEAM ON
BEAM ON
BEAM ON
BEAM ON
BEAM ON
BEAM ON
BEAM ON
BEAM ON
You can breathe.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CAROL HARADA is a somatic healing practitioner at Deep River Healing, partnering with clients to find new healing narratives after grief and loss. She has always lived that interplay between creativity and healing; she naturally incorporates awareness of both into her writing. Carol continues to develop her writing voice in the good company of Laguna Writers. She co-edited the first year of Birdland Journal. She loves living in San Francisco with her furniture designer husband and overlapping circles of community.