Second Strike

So two tumors down (right arm lymph node and a metastasis on my left hip), and the second strike was radiation on the right orbital mass today.  At Sylvester CCC in Deerfield I'll be receiving a total of 10 low dose radiation treatments  on the orbit which will hopefully stop the growth, or even shrink, the size of the mass.  This is palliative, meaning that it does nothing against cancer overall to make me well but alleviates the symptoms and stops potential problems.  The only problem with my right eye is the mass and the sheer size of it pressing on my eyeball and eye muscles.  This has caused proptosis - a pushing out of the eye ball - as well as blurry vision from a bent optical nerve and limited upgaze because the mass is inhibiting the muscle below the eye from allowing it free movement up.  When I look up my right eye only goes so far while my left just keeps on going.  This causes double vision, most notably when watching a TV above a bar, and strange looks from observers who see this happen (it's quite odd looking).  Treatment is a direct beam of radiation - low enough intensity to spare the optical nerve (I hope) but strong enough to bake Bob (that's what we call the eye tumor).  This, of course, requires high precision alignment of the beam because we're talking millimeters of placement and angles.  To accomplish this they made a custom mask (seen here) for me that holds down my head in a vise-like grip to the table while in the machine.  It looks like a medieval torture device but it's not all that horrible.  However, I had trouble breathing with it on and after a while - they were setting up for a bit on my initial treatment - I started to panic and feel claustrophobic.  Deep breathing was out of the question as I could not draw deep breaths so I tried to focus on happy thoughts.  The main one came to fruition when the red lights started to flash and the beam was turned on.  All I could think was "burn, baby, burn."  I think we are getting cancer's attention.