January 26th — Day Two and I’m toying with the idea of accepting my radiation with gratitude. Thanksgiving that there is one more line of therapy to prevent this illness from claiming my life. Right now, it’s still a reminder of my life-threatening illness, an inconvenience, and a scary solitary experience. The gratitude is coming. I can feel it. Maybe tomorrow. Right now, I’m covered in three colors of markers on my chest. I have little dot-to-dot lines showing the radiation fields to be irradiated on my body. Today the techs took more x-rays to make sure my breath holds were consistent. Then they told me to continue to lie perfectly still, naked on the table from the waist up with my arms above my head motionless in my preformed body mold. It’s a lesson in vulnerability. I’m not even allowed to move to help position my body on the table. The techs do it all, adjusting and marking my body for the beams. At one point, I had little post-it sticky notes with arrows pointing to different areas on my body. I’m sure they were not post-it sticky notes but it seemed like it. I couldn’t move my head to look at them and since my throat is exposed to the beams, my head is tilted up and away from the action on my chest. The radiation machine whirs and clicks as it moves around me and the disembodied tech’s voice from outside the radiation room tells me to when to breathe. The door to the radiation room is like a bank vault in thickness and when the techs leave, it’s just the big machine in a windowless room and me. It’s an isolating experience. Someday I’ll make friends with the big machine since we spend so much time together in such an intimate setting. Maybe tomorrow.