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Sep. 3rd, 2023 02:12 amTwo appointments in the beam lairs. Had a lovely time chatting with the people involved. Day 1 involved an orientation from the nurse. I'll have my first interim doctor appointment on Wednesday after beam o'clock.
The state of radiotherapy linear accelerators seems to have moved to wall-mounted units vs. the huge free-standing machines that I met in 2016. The free-standing machines (I think a Varian model) look ABSOLUTELY like stand mixers minus the bowl. I have a lovely 6 liter stand mixer at home. When I was young and able-bodied, I worked with an industrial stand mixer of about 60 gallons, I think, so the home-sized mixers always seem tiny and cute to me.
Day 1: The part where I had to lie still on the table under the thing that looks like a 600 gallon KitchenAid mixer head and not make eye contact with the Freakin' Lasers on the ceiling and walls was not lovely.
I calmed myself by counting the squares on the non-mixer-head panels that also whirled around me, first in one dimension, then in the same dimension to cross-check my counting, then again in that same dimension to see which of my counts it agreed with, then in the other dimension (it also checked with the second count), and then attempted to count the squares one by one.
Day 2: The part where I had to lie still on the table under the thing that looks like a 600 gallon KitchenAid mixer head WITH FREAKIN' LASERS in it, and got to relax underneath an eye drape was much better.
The lasers on the ... Versa? ... machine were in addition to the ceiling and probably also wall lasers. (They did not have laser safety glasses. I asked. The techs sounded like this was the first time anyone had asked, but also like it was a reasonable request that in retrospect they were surprised that no one had asked about before.)
I am, yet again, discovering novel bugs in the system. I may ask about sponsoring some laser safety glasses.
The Versa HD room has Bert on the door. Infinity has Ernie, with duck, and a tiny Bert on his shoulder. The Approved Patient Nutrition fridge has a Futurama Fry magnet. "Man, all this prolonged exposure to radiation is making me thirsty."
The state of radiotherapy linear accelerators seems to have moved to wall-mounted units vs. the huge free-standing machines that I met in 2016. The free-standing machines (I think a Varian model) look ABSOLUTELY like stand mixers minus the bowl. I have a lovely 6 liter stand mixer at home. When I was young and able-bodied, I worked with an industrial stand mixer of about 60 gallons, I think, so the home-sized mixers always seem tiny and cute to me.
Day 1: The part where I had to lie still on the table under the thing that looks like a 600 gallon KitchenAid mixer head and not make eye contact with the Freakin' Lasers on the ceiling and walls was not lovely.
I calmed myself by counting the squares on the non-mixer-head panels that also whirled around me, first in one dimension, then in the same dimension to cross-check my counting, then again in that same dimension to see which of my counts it agreed with, then in the other dimension (it also checked with the second count), and then attempted to count the squares one by one.
Day 2: The part where I had to lie still on the table under the thing that looks like a 600 gallon KitchenAid mixer head WITH FREAKIN' LASERS in it, and got to relax underneath an eye drape was much better.
The lasers on the ... Versa? ... machine were in addition to the ceiling and probably also wall lasers. (They did not have laser safety glasses. I asked. The techs sounded like this was the first time anyone had asked, but also like it was a reasonable request that in retrospect they were surprised that no one had asked about before.)
I am, yet again, discovering novel bugs in the system. I may ask about sponsoring some laser safety glasses.
The Versa HD room has Bert on the door. Infinity has Ernie, with duck, and a tiny Bert on his shoulder. The Approved Patient Nutrition fridge has a Futurama Fry magnet. "Man, all this prolonged exposure to radiation is making me thirsty."
