30. The Jiggle

Water, Water, Every Day

Photo by Cancer Center Staffer

Prone on the radiation machine’s table, I awaited the start of my tenth treatment. As I nestled my feet and calves into the custom-made bean bag designed during a planning session three weeks earlier, I recalled that session, which began when a nurse entered the room, handed me a mug filled with water, and said I needed to “chug the mug.” Trusting that she would explain why this was essential, I chugged. When I finished, she told me to keep the mug; “You’ll need it.” I was unaware that this was the beginning of an obsession with how much water I drank every day. 

As I placed the empty mug in my lap, she described how that day’s planning session would evolve. We would go down the hall to the treatment room, and I would lie on a table that was part of a CT machine. The team would make a “bean bag-like thing” they would place under my heels and calves at the start of each of the upcoming forty-four radiation treatments so that my body was always as close as possible to being in the same position. I would be injected with a contrast liquid needed for that day’s CT scan. Then, the CT machine would use a series of X-rays and a computer to create detailed images, with a focus on my prostate and the nearby rectum and bladder. The contrast liquid was heavy and dense, and she said I needed to drink a lot of water that day and the next to give my kidneys a break.

“How much is a lot?”  

“Forty ounces today and sixty ounces tomorrow.”

A novice at monitoring liquid intake, I asked how my body could handle what seemed like a lot of liquid. She assured me my kidney function was up to the task based on the most recent blood work. With this return to discussing water, drinking had ascended from important to very important. 

She explained that when I drank, my bladder filled and swelled. That swelling pushed much of the bladder out of the treatment field and reduced the amount of radiation hitting the bladder. The radiation therapists would monitor my bladder’s fullness and position before every treatment.

“So while the bladder will move somewhat out of the way,” I said, “it’ll still be exposed to radiation.” 

She nodded and said, “The bladder is very resistant to radiation therapy. You can go to a far higher dose to the bladder than what we’re going to take you to for these treatments.”

She next returned to—what else?—water. When she handed me a sheet with detailed instructions for drinking and urinating before each treatment, water graduated from very important to critical. 

She even told me to practice drinking correctly. I would do this by urinating and then drinking from the mug and timing to the minute how quickly my bladder filled and created the urge to purge. Practice better make perfect and put my bladder in the right shape and position for each day’s radiation. If not, I would be pulled from the machine and returned to the waiting room, where I would chug more water and wait for a bladder refill and the next available slot on the radiation table.  

“When you’re all done this treatment,” the nurse had concluded that day with a smile partially hidden by her Covid-mask, “you’ll be like every other man and say, ‘I have never had anybody so interested in my bladder.’”

Lying on the radiation machine’s table awaiting shot ten, I was jolted from my recollection by the clicking and soft whir of the CT scan investigating—as promised—the condition and location of my bladder, prostate, and rectum. After the CT ended, I waited for the distinctive jiggling of the table, tiny movements left and right, forward and back that I had come to expect as the therapists and computer made the final adjustments to my body’s position.

Awaiting that jiggle, I always felt nervous. Would the therapist decide that my bladder was not full enough and I needed to get off the table, drink more water, and wait for my bladder to swell? Or, because I was flirting with constipation that day and hadn’t had a bowel movement, would the therapist decide that my rectum was too full and tell me that I had to empty it before radiation could begin? How could I force a bowel movement when constipated? 

The table jiggled my worries away. I smiled; I’ll get radiated today. What a thing to smile about. 

The machine started rotating around me, and I told myself to breathe, relax, be still. I held onto the little foam ring the therapists always handed me when positioning my body. Holding the blue ring on my chest kept my arms and hands out of harm’s way. The machine whirred and clicked as it completed a rotation in one direction, stopped, rotated in the opposite direction, stopped, and reversed course again. After that third rotation, radiating was done. Silence returned. I lay there until a therapist entered the room and proclaimed, “All done. Let’s get you off the table.”

As she prepared the table for the next patient, I adjusted my scrub pants and hustled for the doorway, anxious to hit the bathroom and relieve the demanding urge from a bladder that I had been told only minutes ago had “just a light load.” Whatever. Another day of radiation was successful. That was all that mattered.

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For stories of moments Mary and I have shared in wild lands and with wildlife, check out my previous books. In the Temple of Wolves is the bestseller with more than 500 five-star reviews on Amazon. Deep into Yellowstone is the sequel and won a Gold Medal in the Independent Publisher Book Awards. The Wilds of Aging, the prequel and winner of a National Indie Excellence Award, takes you on a journey with me into wild lands and aging. Click on a title above for a signed copy from me, or visit Amazon for unsigned paperback copies, ebooks, and audio CDs.

Disclaimer

I’m a writer, not a doctor. I’m very qualified to write stories about my journey. I’m not qualified to give—nor am I giving—medical advice. As these stories show, Mary and I came up with many approaches to deal with my cancer. We always ran our ideas by our medical team to see how the approaches fit medically. Everybody’s body is different. What worked for me may not work for someone else. If something in these stories generates an idea of an approach that you or someone you know might use, first consult with the medical team.