Radiation 101

Radiotherapy Machines...

Padmatara, Julie, Pasadini, Dawn and I went to a "Radiation 101" class today at Kaiser in South San Francisco. We saw the unbelievably sophisticated and huge machine made by a local company called Varian which delivers radiation.

Then there was a slide show with several different people talking about their areas, including a Medical Dosimetrist, a behind the scenes guy who "designs a treatment plan by means of computer and/or manual computation to determine a treatment field technique that will deliver the prescribed radiation dose while taking into consideration the dose-limiting structures." [via healthpronet.org].

A nutritionist spoke for a bit. Looked at the booklet "Eating Hints: Before, During and After Cancer Treatment." Some of it was to do with managing side effects of treatment, but...for example, I can't believe they tell people losing their appetite to drink fruit punch! I'm much more confident getting nutritional advice from the acupuncturist, who says to eat omega 3's, all organic food, very different...

A social worker told us some interesting stuff - I will give her a call at some point to find out about classes for people with cancer & support groups. Would also like to go to the "Look Good....Feel Better" class offered there by the American Cancer Society. They tell you how to draw eyebrows and other cosmetic stuff. It had only vaguely occurred to me that I won't have any eyebrows, which almost seems worse than losing the hair on my head...It was nice to be there with friends. It did possibly make it less scary.