I has been microwaved in the head - what's your excuse?

It's 2:45PM on a Monday afternoon. Deep in the cavernous bowels of the James Graham Brown Cancer center in Louisville, I am lying on a cold table directly underneath a gigantic multi-ton machine that hangs from the ceiling, intended to blast my cancer cells into oblivion. My feet wiggle back and forth as the touching love ballad “Smack That” plays over the intercom for my listening pleasure.

My mom called me elf-girl when she saw this picture. Hmph.

The technician comes in and lowers a mask strangely reminiscent of a horror movie serial-killer hockey mask over my face, and bolts it to the table so that I can’t move. When I reflect that Kentucky is geographically near an active fault line, I regret being bolted down to a table with something the size of a Cadillac dangling over my head. Only about a month ago, there had been a minor earthquake in the area. Nice.

This will be the photo that I put on Match.com for internet dating. What guy can resist a bald girl in a demented hockey mask?

I immediately regret my decision of two weeks earlier, when the radiotherapist had given me a choice: the Halloween mask or blue tattoo dots on my face. The claustrophobia induced by the mask makes me contemplate ways that blue tattoo dots could be incorporated into some sort of Samoan facial tattoo, which I try to convince myself really could be attractive. Maybe with just the right tribal design I could distract attention away from my Yoda ears...

Serial-killer mask time! Yee!

A hydraulic drone begins, and the table lifts itself six feet into the air, inching slowly upward so that it is proximal to the Cobalt source. The technician leaves. I want to leave too! I think as my head approaches what looks like a huge camera lens. The lights dim and a laser begins criss-crossing my face, as it pin-points the desired location for the radiation beam. The large machine begins to click, and then with a buzz it bombards the right side of my face with photons for 30 seconds. Poof! Poof! Poof! The little cancer cells are yelling AHH!!! and then going Poof! into a puff of cartoon smoke. At least they are in my head.

My highly scientific rendering of electrons irradiating cancer cells. I'm sure it will be in a medical textbook someday so that future radiotherapists can learn about poof-ification.

More clicking. A loud buzz emanates from the machine and then a beam of electrons hits my face. Electrons taste funny – kind of like chlorine (really). With a final click, the treatment is over, and I am aware that the table is lowering. The technician comes in and lifts the mask off of my face, which from my perspective feels very much like the unmasking in “Iron Mask.” I want to take a nap and am really sick of writing now, so this is THE END of my melodramatic radiation account!!!

My radiotherapist is Dr. Evil, and he uses Lay-ZURs. For my treatment, I am surrounded by sharks with lay-ZUR beams on their heads. They're outside the photo.