A Journey in Pink - Part III: Bonna L. Nelson

A Journey in Pink

Part III, Gamma Rays and Hypofractionated Beams

by Bonna L. Nelson

I don’t tell my story to scare people but to stress the importance of knowing your own body and trusting your instincts.

~ Olivia Newton-John Singer and actress, diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992

Wait! What’s going on here? How and float in and out of my sightline. did I get here? What am I doing lying My table moves up and down, back on a table in the middle of a cavern- and forth. ous room, bare from the waist up, One figure adjusts my arms and surrounded by machines zooming places my hands on grip bars over and whirling around me? Masked my head. Another turns my head figures in blue coats hover near me to the left. One adjusts my lowered

gown even lower. Two tug at the sheet placed beneath me; one says, “move more to your side.”

Small red lights in the ceiling aim laser beams at my upper torso. Blinking computers are on either side of the table. Suddenly, a circular machine buzzes over my head and stops on my left side, glass covered with small venetian blinds inside. A masked figure approaches me and examines something behind the machine glass, then calls out, “92,” then “96.”

Footsteps recede. “All right, you are all set,” the shadowy shapes say. “We will be watching you. We can hear you. Be very still, and

My support system! do not move.” With a loud clunk, a large door closes. I lie all alone in the spacious room, cold, goosebumped, trying to remain calm, relax my knees raised on a bolster and rest my strained back muscles.

Am I on a spaceship? Kidnapped by aliens? Part of an experiment? Machines behind, above and next to me click, thump, rumble, hover, scrape, start and stop. Sometimes there is quiet, but always dark with beaming red lights. I watch the circular machine next to my face but see and feel nothing and only hear clicks from it.

Suddenly the machines start to rotate around me and come to a stop. Bright overhead lights come on. The red lights turn off. The masked figures return. My heart races. What next? They help me lower my aching arms, raise my gown to cover me, lower the table and help me to me feet.

“Good job, Mrs. Nelson! Your treatment is done. See you tomorrow,” say my new friends, my radiation therapists (RTs). Oh, I know why I am here. I am being treated for breast cancer. After a special GammaPod treatment on day one, I have begun hypofractionated, whole beam, radiation therapy, and I have 14 more to go. I think that pretending I am on a spaceship, abducted by aliens, will humor me and help me get through this!

Treating cancer is a team effort. Medical geniuses in multiple fields

and specialties work together to design treatment plans that science, medicine, research and clinical trials have determined are standards of care for various types of cancer. In addition to medical geniuses, technology plays a major role in treating cancer, and technology is a major component in the treatment of cancer with radiation.

In my case, I was diagnosed in June of 2020 with breast cancer ~ a small, invasive Stage I ductal carcinoma in my right breast. A routine yearly mammogram revealed the cancer, which was confirmed by sonogram and biopsy.

Within weeks, my oncology sur- Dr. Elizabeth Nichols and me.

Life really is bett er on the Eastern Shore!

For ques� ons about real estate in Easton,St. Michaels, Oxford, or points in between, call me at 410-924-2432 A bett er life could be IS waiti ng!

101 N. West Street, Easton, MD 21601 Cell: 410-924-2432 Office: 410-822-2001 joanwetmore@msn.com Joan Wetmore

Journey in Pink I had completed the first three adventures of the journey in pink. I geon verified the findings with survived surgery, chemotherapy and another sonogram and MRI and side eff ects with the support of my performed a lumpectomy and lymph medical teams and their skilled use node removal. A biopsy of the re- of associated technology. moved tumor examined by pathologists revealed another tumor behind Cancer didn’t bring me to my the original and that tumor margins knees. It brought me to my feet. and lymph nodes were free of cancer. ~ Michael Douglas

A month later a radiologist im- Actor, diagnosed with throat planted a port in my upper left chest cancer in 2010 and threaded a catheter into a vein leading to my heart for the next The fi nal phase of my pink jourphase of treatment: chemotherapy ney, radiation-gamma rays and administered to kill any remaining hypofractionated beams used to cancer cells in my body. My medical target any remaining cancer and oncologist prescribed four che- pre-cancer cells in the breast, inmotherapy treatments, each three volved the most technology. I met weeks apart. with my radiation oncologist, Dr.

Elizabeth Nichols, at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center (UMGCCC) in Baltimore. My husband, John, and I, with the support of our Easton medical team, decided to receive radiation treatment with Dr. Nichols after meeting with her during a second opinion search. We trusted her proposed treatment methodology, a shorter radiation time frame and a radiation boost with no additional surgery and fewer side effects.

Dr. Nichols and her team, including Nurse Practitioner (NP) Sarah Ruff, examined me and answered our questions about the time frame for treatment, what to expect during treatment, risks, side effects and skin treatments.

I wore my pink wig for fun to reduce the tension of the day and it worked. All of the staff that I encountered, including the doctor, were amused. Dr. Nichols invited me to join a clinical trial related to the GammaPod equipment that would give me my first radiation boost directed at the excised tumor site.

Next, the fun began. Frank Maccia, RT walked me to the scan room for three CT scans. The purpose of the scans is to provide simulation data to the scientists, dosimetrists and medical physicists who support Dr. Nichols. The data are used to prepare the recommended radiation plan and to take measurements for Frank, RT arranging me for a scan.

the plan and for a mold to cradle my head, shoulders and neck for perfect positioning during treatment.

Between scans, Frank and fellow RT Eleni Smedly drew green permanent cross marks around my chest and covered the marks with clear circular stickers with BBs in the center. Frank explained that they are used to properly position the body on the equipment at the beginning of each radiation session so that the treatment is precise and according to plan.

One thing you learn quickly during breast cancer treatment is that modesty gets thrown out the window. For X-rays, scans and radiation treatment, I was naked from the waist up while guys and gals positioned me for treatment, executed treatment and monitored me on computers outside of the radiation room.

This was also true during the first treatment phase, discovery and surgery. I was bare in all my glory, as you can imagine and have probably

Call For Availability

Dr. Nichols, dosimetrists and medical physicists working on my treatment plan outside of the GammaPod room.

experienced, for mammograms, sonograms, biopsy, MRI, surgery and exams. Chemotherapy is a more modest phase of treatment. I was exposed for the port procedure and infrequent medical oncologist exams but was fully dressed for the actual chemo treatments.

As for the attractive chest markings, when I asked my friend Pam Reynolds, who received radiation treatment for breast cancer just before I did, what it looked like, she responded, “I am marked up like a Christmas ornament!” When I asked John what he thought about my newly decorated chest, he thought that I was “marked up like a Maori warrior.”

I began radiation treatment on January 4, with one GammaPod treatment followed by 15 hypofrac-