Day 212 - Cancelled

As I was walking into my radiation appointment this afternoon, I noticed some very black clouds and strikes of lightning in the distance.  Not thinking much of it (it is summer in the south after all), I walked in, checked in, and got ready for treatment.

As soon as I sat down in the women's lounge to wait for the techs to come and get me for treatment, I could hear a storm raging outside.  Two seconds later, the room went totally black, and I heard all kinds of alarms and beeping.  Thankfully the generator kicked in, and a few lights came on so that I could see.

The storm knocked out the power in the cancer center.  I walked out of the lounge, wearing my lovely gown, to investigate the situation.  People were rushing around, and I soon realized that they were getting someone out of the radiation machine.  A gentleman was receiving his treatment when the power went off!  I am pretty sure that someone would have needed to restart my heart had that happened to me, but the other patient was fine.  Apparently backup power comes on in the radiation room, but the techs had to hand crank the table down and away from the machine so that they could get the patient out of it and back into his wheelchair.  Poor guy.

The power went in and out a few more times before the office manager cancelled treatments for the rest of the day.  Getting all of the systems back online would have taken quite a while so radiation was cancelled.  I was given the option of making up my treatment early on Monday morning or just tacking on an additional treatment at the end.  I chose to add an additional treatment on at the end. I will finish radiation on a Monday instead of a Friday (barring further delays of course), which makes me twitch a little bit, but I will deal.  It just feels strange for something to end on a Monday.

As I was walking in, a woman was walking out after completing her last treatment.  I am very glad that the power held for her.  I can't imagine the disappointment of something like that happening on someone's last day of radiation.

I've got a 4 day radiation break, and my skin is going to be really happy about that.  It is pretty red and pretty tender, but it will heal some during the break.  Much excitement in the radiation oncology department today.