I thought this was just an appointment with my oncologist. A conversation about options. Instead, after the consult came two more appointments I did not know to brace myself for. Mask fitting first, then the mapping. No pause or time to catch my breath between talking about it and beginning it.
For my mask I needed a mouth bite, to keep my tongue in the same position every radiation session. It felt like it was gagging me, forcing my jaw open and pushing down onto my still healing tongue. A sharp, unexpected pressure that sent panic through my body. I swallowed hard, fighting the instinct to pull away, to say stop. My tongue throbbed where it was pinned, tender and sore, and for a moment all I could think about was how vulnerable it felt.
As the warm mesh of the mask was draped over my face, strangers’ hands moved over my face, firm and deliberate, pushing and pressing to get a perfect mould. Fingers along my jaw, neck, shoulders,cheeks and forehead! Adjusting, smoothing, holding. The mask that was warm and soft at first, cooled and tightened, locking my face into a shape.
“Breathe normally,” they said, calmly, kindly. So I did. Or at least, I tried. I focused on slow breaths through my nose, reminding myself that this discomfort had a purpose, that this was precision, not cruelty. Still, it was confronting in a way I hadn’t anticipated, how quickly control slipped away once the mask and bite were in place.
After that came the planning session. Preparation, measurements, light grids across my face and neck numbers shared that would one day matter a great deal to the team setting me up for radiation.
I lay still on the narrow table while strangers with kind eyes adjusted my position by millimetres. “Comfortable?” they asked, knowing full well comfort was a moving target now. I nodded anyway. It felt important to be agreeable, as if cooperation could make this easier.
A scanner slid around me like a patient moon, mapping parts of my body I’d never really thought about before. On a screen nearby, images appeared clinical, that looked so precise.
My chest was marked with a tiny tattoo, just like a small freckle. A permanent reminder. They said, so they could line everything up perfectly each time. I wondered what future me would think of it, whether it would feel like scars, or stars, or proof that I stayed.
Between instructions to “breathe normally” and “don’t move,” my mind wandered. To the life waiting outside this room. To the fact that planning meant intention, and intention meant hope, even if no one said the word out loud. But my fear of the weeks to come were left brewing inside of me.
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