This was written on March 4, 2005 and was sent to our "radiation buddies". Our radiation buddies were 2 wonderful friends who offered to go to the hospital each day with my wife to help out for Paige's radiation treatments. I would have preferred to go to all, but I just couldn't handle the schedule. Without friends like these, this part of the brain tumor journey would have been so much harder.

If your interested, I took pictures on our last day of radiation treatments. They're mostly of the nurses, staff and us celebrating. But, here are the pictures...

A typical treatment has us leaving the house around 7:00. We've found it's easiest to go up I-95, through the tunnel to Boston St. We park in the garage that's under the Weinberg Building.

The first part of your helping will be the task of "carrier" - carrying the diaper bag and a gift bag.

Once inside, we scan Paige's card (she helps, of course) and then head back to the nurses station/recovery area. Back there, the diaper bag and gift bag are put off to the side. We try to keep it out of Paige's direct attention because she knows that her bottle's in there and will whine for it if she's allowed to be around the diaper bag.

Once in the recovery area, we have to wait for the nurse to hook Paige up to an IV. During this time, it's basically just play time with Paige. Once it looks like the nurse is ready, we go ahead and take Paige's shirt and onesy off.

After Paige is hooked up, the nurse usually checks to make sure the radiation room is ready for us. If it is, we head back the hallway with 2 pacifiers and "kitty".

Once back in the radiation room, Paige gets her pacifiers and "kitty". The anesthesiologist will add the anesthesia to Paige's IV and Paige'll fall asleep. Paige is handed off to one of the people in the room (usually big guy named "Al") and we're asked to leave. We take the 2 pacifiers and "kitty" with us and leave it on Paige's bed, which magically appears outside of the radiation room.

We wait 20 minutes or so for Paige to be brought out. About half of the time, she's awake and fussing and the other half of the time she's sleeping.

If she's asleep, it's a lot easier. The nurses and anesthesiologist will hook Paige up to monitors and take vital signs. We just let Paige sleep and don't try to wake her. We've been having the nurses disconnect and flush the IV while Paige is still asleep. We do this because once Paige wakes up, she's a blur of motion (rolling over, trying to sit up, climb up to mom) until she gets picked up. Once she wakes up, we generally try to disconnect the monitor cords and blood pressure cuff as quickly as we can (they clip onto little sticky patches that are put onto Paige's chest and stomach). After she's awake, I make the bottle and Mandie gives it to her. For the bottle, everything's in the diaper bag (insde is the bottle, formula and stirrer and outside is a water bottle w/ warm water).

If she's awake, she's very fussy. Mandie usually ends up holding her. My/your job will be to pick up the things Paige throws down and to rinse off the pacifiers that hit the floor. Once Paige has a bit more control over her body, I/you make a bottle. The nurse and anesthesiologist may or may not try to take vital signs (heart rate, oxygen level, blood pressure, temp, etc). The nurse will disconnect the IV and flush it.

After she's had her bottle, we give her the gift bag. After that, we dress her.

Once Mandie's comfortable that Paige is awake enough, it's time to head out. Again, I/you play the roll of carrier (diaper bag and gift bag). We pay with parking stamps, so we have to go up to the main lobby level and pay at a cashier. Once paid, it's to the car and heading home.

Now, things that are normal but can be surprising the first time:
- Don't be concerned if she's got an oxygen mask in-front of her face when they bring her out from the radiation, this is normal.
- Don't be concerned if there's blood in the IV line, this is normal.
- Don't be concerned if there's white fluid in the IV line, this is just left over anesthesia and is normal.

On the bright side of all of this is that everyone there is overly friendly, down to the other boy and his parents that gets treatment right after Paige.

Update after the fact: we worked with the anesthesiologists to tune in the "proper" amount of anesthesia (propofal) for Paige. We found that this was really one case of "the more, the better".