I won’t miss the mask

Lead radiographer Julie Davies discusses the treatment with David. Picture, Darren Robinson

Chronicle Managing Editor David Whaley is sharing his experiences of throat cancer treatment with readers.


Part SEVEN: The treatment over, the waiting begins

HOW can you possibly miss being clamped to a bed by a mask and blasted with radiation?

After 16 successive daily sessions of such treatment it’s all over. But there remains a void. We must wait six weeks before seeing Dr Lee from Christies to hear the results of the treatment.

Lead radiographer at Christie Oldham, Julie Davies, said the wait can be the toughest time for patients to handle.

She’s so right. The cyclone my family got caught up in on that last day of April, when we heard the words tumour and throat cancer for the first time, caused little short of a blur. Hospital visits, meetings, tests, scans and the treatment decision were the start of a strange new routine, one that would result in 5,000 centrigrays (cGy) of radiation (that’s the unit of measurement for the total dose) being fired at the invader lodged precariously on my left vocal cord.

By the end I knew the routine like clockwork: into the room with the fantastic radiographers at the ready. Name, address and date of birth - to make sure they were teeing up the right person - then into my old mate the mask. I won’t miss him, though I might ask to keep him so I can hang him on the wall in the garage as a work of art!

(If I could change one thing to ease this process for others it would be to make the clips that fasten the mask, and thus me and you, to the bed a lot quieter - less like that of a cell bolt latching home noisily at the hand of a jailer).

Once fixed, the team gets to work, first positioning me by laser to the start point.

“Nothing left, right down 1.7. In 2.4,” I hear them reading from the screen as the bed starts to move. Older readers might remember Bernie the Bolt on Bob Monkhouse’s “Golden Shot”. This process is a bit like being the apple they were aiming at...

More time is taken to check the angles of attack for the machine I’m lying under, but then the treatment itself is over in seconds. And painless, of course, entirely undramatic except for a low buzz from the machine.

Each day I counted the treatments down: 16, 15, 14... to the final day - when sure enough, the computer took exception to our farewells to scanner “Oldham 1” by making the visit last four hours because of breakdowns.

In the nicest possible way, all the staff at Christie Oldham hope they do not see you again. They aren’t involved in your care once radiotherapy is completed; you return to the doctors.

Is that difficult for them?

“We hear from some from time to time, to let us know how they have gone on. And we have repeat visitors if they need further treatment, but there are always new faces,” said Rebecca Hamnett, Christie Oldham’s admin manager.

Patient confidentiality prevents team members letting on to former patients in the street - unless said patients say hello first.

And so we said what we hoped were our goodbyes, bought the staff canteen some tea and coffee as a token thank-you - how could it be anything but a token? - and went through the doors and back to the real world.

They say the next two weeks are when the sore throat and burned neck are at their worst, since the full 5,000 cGy dose has now hit your body. It’s not fun and my voice has been all but non-existent; but we get by.

The first week in this wilderness ended with a massive boost: Dr Lee gave us “permission” to travel, so a week in Spain beckons.

No work, no meetings, no networking, no phone calls, no mobile. And I might not talk like a dalek on my return.

Keep smiling
n Next week: Such a variety of practical help