My Proton Playlist & Graduation

This hangs high above the fountain that's down on the basement-level waiting area for patients and their families.
Can you see the crane?
The ring beneath the crane sculpture has MD Anderson's slogan on it:
MAKING CANCER HISTORY

My ears are wide open almost all the time. I'll be in a store, thinking about my mom, and all of a sudden a grossly "muzack'ed" version of a Jimmy Buffett song will be playing overhead. Or I'll be driving around town, thinking of a random memory of Honey and me during our courtship and one of "our songs" will start playing on the radio. This happens ALL THE TIME for me. So I always keep my ears open. It's almost like I have this long-running private soundtrack to my life!

When I first entered the proton radiation treatment room (called Gantry #2) back in December, and I first saw that ginmormous sci-fi rotating wall, it should come as no surprise that the first thing I thought of was Pink Floyd's song, "Welcome to the Machine."

After a series of different mechanical, buzzing and digital sounds, a guitar begins strumming and these lyrics are sung:

Welcome my son
Welcome to the machine
Where have you been?
It's alright we know where you've been
You've been in the pipeline
Filling in time
Provided with toys and scouting for boys
You bought a guitar to punish your ma
You didn't like school
And you know you're nobody's fool
So welcome to the Machine.

Really, this doesn't do the song justice. If you have access to it, listen to it for a minute. All those sounds within the music is the best way to describe the Proton Radiation Machine!

As I lie (lay?) there, day after day, on what the techs referred to as the "couch" but what I referred to as the "slab," I'd listen to whatever music they happened to have playing on their little stereo in the room. After about a week, I realized that they were playing the same CD over and over again. I'd hear the same handful of songs every single day! It wasn't boring at all...I didn't get sick of the songs. In fact, I found comfort in them and I just knew that from that moment on, I would forever associate those particular songs with my experiences here in Houston these past two months! They weren't particularly meaningful songs. While I tried to find a deeper meaning or attachment between the treatment and the lyrics in those songs, I really could not. Sure, a couple of them like, "No Woman No Cry" and "Imagine" sort of made sense, what with the challenge of having to endure the treatments and their uncomfortable and often painful side effects.

Imagine
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

No Woman No Cry
No woman no cry,
No woman no cry,
Please little darlin, don't shed no tears.
No woman no cry.
Everything is gonna be alright.
(Repeat about 10 times)

Being an avid music fan, after a couple more weeks, I asked one of my favorite techs if I could borrow the CD to rip the songs onto my computer, thus helping me take my mind back to this time in my life whenever I want! I thought it was a single, handmade CD. As it turned out, though, she handed me a set of two professionally produced CDs in a compilation called something like "Songs of the Millenium." I was surprised that although these were two full length CD's with about 15 songs on each disc, somehow I ended up hearing the same 5-7 songs every day I was there - no matter if my scheduled time was in the morning or in the evening! It was so strange! I mentioned it to the techs and they just explained that they put the first CD in in the morning, play it through, and when it ended they'd put the second one in and repeat this process all day long. But how did I just happen to be timed with those specific songs all the time? I mean, for three weeks I was going in at 8am. Then I changed to 5pm. But my evening appointments never took me back at the same time. I'd go back there at 6:30, 6:45, 7:15...one night I didn't get back there until after 8:00pm! And yet I still heard those same songs!

So I brought it home, ripped the songs and returned the CDs back the next day. A couple of days later, a fluke occurred: I heard a different handful of the songs on that same CD set! And these songs were meaningful! I was so thrilled, it was all I could do to refrain from wiggling my feet in the little contraption they had holding my feet in place! I wasn't allowed to move even a millimeter throughout each treatment. I even got in trouble once for wiggling my fingers to the beat of a song even though my arms were raised high above my head and locked in place by this other contraption that had been molded to fit my arms in that position! Anyway, I was psyched that those songs meaned more to me than the others had. Unfortunately, the next day and throughout the remainder of my treatments there the music selection reverted back to that same original grouping, the order of which I had already begun to memorize!

The night of my graduation I didn't expect much. Over the past 5.5 weeks, we have witnessed several people graduate. They brought TONS of food; party platters full of meat, cheeses, breads and condiments; boxes of cookies and cupcakes; bags of donuts or kolaches; one time I even saw a casserole dish with something homemade in it! Again, we felt out of place, what with me being the only patient older than 10 but younger than 60. Ya'll know how Pete and I are social butterflies but we never really felt like part of the group in that big but comfortable waiting area.

So we never partook of these graduation goodies. When I graduated we brought a bag full of gummy candies in the shapes of various body parts which we had found before Halloween! We brought them for the staff since they'd appreciate them the most! (As did the nurses that tended to me during my post-chemoembolization stay at Halloween!)
In addition to the treats, previous graduates would have what seemed like dozens of the other patients and their S.O.'s and several nurses, doctors and technicians gathered around them as they said a little speech of gratitude, camereas flashed and the gong was banged. It was a big deal!

Like I said, Honey and I hadn't bonded with anyone there in the lobby area where all the patients waited to be called back and then the significant others of the patients waited while the treatments were administered. We never participated in the group effort at completing one of the two puzzles they seemed to work on every week. Instead, we'd find a comfy spot, sit next to each other and read our books or played our Sudoku. Sure, we exchanged pleasantries with those around us almost every day. We'd smile and nod our heads in our daily greetings. But nothing more. There was noone left in the waiting or dressing areas when it was my turn to graduate and Dad and Carol had already flown home the day before. It certainly wasn't going to be a big crowd at my gong-banging, so why was I so nervous!?!

My appointment was at 5ish and there was only one set of "wait-ers" in the lobby and they just happened to belong to the lady who got treatments right before me in the same Gantry. When she was done and came out of the mysterious doors to the Gantries, they all left, of course. So Pete came back with me and took some snapshots of my last trip on the slab!

I had made friends with a couple of the technicians (I could never remember if they were called "technicians" or "nurses" or "therapists" or what! My bad!) that worked with me since they were about my age or even a bit younger. We all joked around and they congratulated me on my graduation. They got me up on the slab and prepared me for my last proton radiation treatment.

But here's where keeping my ears open and alert at all times came in handy that night...

As I was lying there, closing my eyes and enjoying the experience of the slab moving up and down and side to side, watching the Xray parts of the Machine come in and out of the rotating wall behind me and trying desperately not to think about "what if this doesn't work at all" I listened carefully to the music that played in the background.

They had the second CD of that same set in that night. And this time, it was on shuffle. Here is what I heard during my final 20 minutes on the slab:

Start Me Up - Rolling Stones
I walk smooth, ride in a mean, mean machine
Start it up
If you start it up
Kick on the starter give it all you got, you got, you got!

Let's Dance - David Bowie
Lets dance, put on your red shoes and dance the blues
Lets dance, to the song theyre playin on the radio
Lets sway, you could look into my eyes
Lets sway, under the moonlight, this serious moonlight
(yes I sometimes visualized that The Machine and I were doing a dance!)

Are You Gonna Go My Way - Lenny Kravitz
I have come to save the day
And I won't leave until I'm done
So that's why we've got to try
We've got to breathe and have some fun
Though I'm not paid I play this game
And I won't stop until I'm done
(But what I really want to know is)
Are you gonna go my way

Livin' on a Prayer - Bon Jovi
She says weve got to hold on to what we've got
Cause it doesnt make a difference if we make it or not
We've got each other and thats a lot
For love - well give it a shot
Whooah, were half way there
Livin on a prayer
Take my hand and well make it, I swear
Livin on a prayer

We Are the Champions - Queen
I've paid my dues
Time after time
I've done my sentence
But committed no crime
And bad mistakes,
I've made a few
I've had my share of sand kicked in my face
But I've come through
We are the champions, my friends
And well keep on fighting till the end
We are the champions
We are the champions
No time for losers cause we are the champions of the world
Ive taken my bows
And my curtain calls
You brought me fame and fortuen and everything that goes with it
I thank you all
But its been no bed of roses
No pleasure cruise
I consider it a challenge before the whole human race
And I aint gonna lose!

Those are just portions of lyrics of each song (except the Queen one, I think that's basically all of them!). It's incredible how well they matched my experience and how I was feeling! I was eccstatic by all of this, I found it hard to stay still on that slab!

One beam administered...change appetures...second beam administered...change appetures. As they left the room before the third and final beam was administered to me, they turned up the stereo as they walked out (for safety reasons I am the only one in the room when the beam comes at me) and they hollered, "ONE MORE! HORRAY!" over the loudspeaker. The song that was playing on the stereo? Wonderwall by Oasis. Here's a bit of the song:

And all the roads we have to walk along are winding
And all the lights that lead us there are blinding
There are many things that I would like to say to you
But I don't know how
Because maybe
You're gonna be the one who saves me ?
And after all
You're my wonderwall

Pretty cool huh? Want to know what's even cooler? I've heard that song lots of times (maybe too much!) on the radio when it was popular several years ago. I never knew what "wonderwall" meant. So I just now looked it up on wikipedia.com and learned that it's the title of a 1968 movie. Here's wiki's summary of the plot:

The story of the film revolves around the reclusive, eccentric scientist Oscar Collins (MacGowran), whose next-door neighbours are a pop photographer (Quarrier) and his girlfriend/model (Birkin), named Penny Lane. Discovering a beam of light streaming through a hole in the wall between them, Collins follows the light and spots Penny modelling for a photo shoot. Intrigued, he begins to make more holes, as days go by and they do more photo sessions. Oscar gradually becomes infatuated with the girl, and feels a part of the couple's lives, even forsaking work to observe them. When they quarrel and the couple split, Penny takes an overdose of pills and passes out, but Oscar comes to her rescue.

That beam of light part is pretty ironic I think! Anyway the lyrics are what struck me as super significant. And, to be perfectly honest, I don't think the technicians planned it that way. Whenever I'd mention a song that I'd just heard during treatments over the past few weeks, they'd respond sort of dumbfounded as if they weren't paying attention to the music at all. I bet it's like at any other job where you just sort of drown out the music since you hear it day in and day out. But I heard it and it sure meant something to me!

After it was all done, the techs signed little farewell notes on the large chunks of plastic/vinyl/fiberglass pieces that were used to guide the proton beam into the tumor.

If you want to know what these are and why they are cut out into the shapes that they are, ask Pete. He'll give you a better explanation than I ever could! Just leave your question for him in the comments section.

We joked some more about the music I heard every day. Honey took pictures with his professional-looking camera. My godmother Deborah was there as was Judy...the lady who Deborah knows who works at MD Anderson. The same lady who got me in to see Curley within a matter of hours without ever even meeting me! I asked Deborah to invite her and I was thrilled that she showed up for the gong banging! I got an official certificate of completion with a big fat gold star on it!

And then I banged the ritualistic gong they have in the hallway for just such an occassion.

I gave no speech. Words cannot express how grateful I am for this experience. What I really wanted to do was march back there to the room behind the Gantry where the GUTS of The Machine are and formally thank IT for saving my life!


This is what's behind the giant rotating wall behind my head while I'm on the aforementioned slab. Want a better idea just how big this thing is? Look carefully at the image above on the right side. See the electrical outlet just to the (your) right of that white square? That's just your run-of-the-mill, regular-sized outlet (about the size of my hand). This thing is HAAA-UGE!

This is the top of the gantry in the previous picture.


Colorful mechanics that help manipulate and guide the proton beam - which is no larger than the diameter of a #2 pencil.

So there you go. That was graduation in a nutshell.

What's that? Are you asking yourself, "What in the world does it say on her t-shirt?" Well, first of all, I dressed "down" because that's how everybody dresses at the Proton Center. It's never a place for fancy clothes. Unless you think thread-bare, blueish-gray hospital gowns are fancy. Okay and now here's what my shirt says: "I )HEART( LIFE - It's worth the FIGHT!"

You bet your sweet bippy it is!