Prostate Cancer Day 28 Meet Lynn
Here it is. The last day of the initial 28 days. Tomorrow is the first day of the last 14 and a change in Fuzzy’s treatment parameters. Dr. G. explained that the change would be to the area treated. It will be smaller but the dose and angles will remain the same. He said I would notice that the beam of x rays would be on a few seconds longer since the area had decreased.
Fuzzy met Lynn, his Physicist. She did her part early in the game. She used the images that Mary supplied from the CAT scan to plan my treatment set up. Lynn is a short, very pregnant woman with an easy laugh and a smile that lights her face. Fuzzy met her today because tomorrow she is going on maternity leave. Fuzzy is glad he didn’t miss a chance to meet her and find out just what part she played in his treatment. She also really liked the idea of Fuzzy naming the Varian the PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator. I guess she is Marvin the Martian fan.
The Physicist’s job is to plan how and where to shoot the cancerous area with the x rays. She was the one who calculated the angles and the amount of time that is needed to treat Fuzzy. This is not as simple as it sounds since no two patients are exactly the same inside. One of my internal items she needed to figure out, since it is in the line of fire is my Femoral Arteries. The femorals are the two arteries that go down each leg, They are connected to your aorta by a Y connection and now mine is very different from most people. Fuzzy’s are plastic tubing. I told you there have been a number of medical problems. One of them was very high cholesterol which plugged up that Y connection with goo. Who knew you couldn’t live on creme filled cakes without it causing a problem? So in the winter of 2001 into 2002 Fuzzy received new plumbing. So Lynn had to take that, as well as other things like bone placement and density and the location of other internal parts, into consideration to calculate the angles and beams and then get these settings into the program that controls the PU-36.
Fuzzy sees the results of those calculations and work everyday as the PU-36 moves around him. Fuzzy wishes Lynn, her new baby, and family well in the future. Fuzzy knows it is going to be a cute baby since he or she has a cute mommy.
Thank you Lynn for your work in helping to save Fuzzy’s life.