First Radiation Treatment
Radiation treatment (for me) involves laying on my back on a table that slides in and out of a big ring. The way I understand it, the ring contains five low intensity X-ray beams. These beams are focused on the area on my esophagus and stomach around where the tumor is located. Here's a picture of a picture they gave me of where they are aiming:
The purpose of radiation is to burn the tumor and surrounding tissue so they kill all the cancer cells. We met with the radiation doctor, Dr. Hansen, last week. He said that the cancer was barely visible on the CT Scan. I took that to mean "it is a very small tumor" right now. Yet look at the size of the area they are treating, drawn on my chest and belly. That does not look small to me! This includes the tumor as well as much tissue around the tumor and also lymph nodes around all this tissue.
My understanding is that for a cancer growth to be visible on the most precise CT scan or PET scan, it must have about 200,000 to 250,000 cells. Any cancer growth that is smaller cannot be detected. So they treat (i.e., burn) a big area around what they can detect, hoping to kill all the cancer cells they can't see. Better safe than sorry.
Today I was on the table for about 20 minutes. Some of this time was positioning me exactly according to the tattoos that they gave me a week ago:
From now on they said I'd be on the table about 10 minutes.
The actual radiation treatment is painless. However, since they are burning my esophagus, around week 3 of the treatment, it will start hurting to eat. They can give me something to swallow that will numb my esophagus so I can eat, but then that will not be enough and they'll prescribe pain medication so I can eat. I can't wait.
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