Tattoos, Bondage, Women, and Good Health

Kinky, eh? This is a custom made restraint for my head. It starts life as a flat piece of plastic then it is placed in hot water until soft. When the plastic is ready it is wrapped around the head and molded to the person's face. You can't see it in this picture but there are three anchors that hook up to a table, strapping the head firmly down.

I guess I need to explain a bit here. On Tuesday I went in for my visit to my radiation oncologist. He laid out my radiation therapy for me: 20 treatments. The treatments will be done every work day. I start on Wednesday. After I visited him I joined five highly skilled women into the planning room to map out my body, get custom restraints (shown) and headrests made, and tattooed all so my body can be aligned perfectly for each treatment. If your idea of sexy is laying on a hard CAT scan table, strapped down, topless, having a bunch of women draw on your body with Sharpie markers, and tattooed, then I had a sexy time. They also had REM's "Out of Time" on their Ipod, which is what I requested we listen to. "Losing My Religion" is actually a great song to listen to while having medical stuff done to you. I don't know why that is. It just fits.

On Wednesday, I visited with my main oncologists Heather and Martha. It was Heather's turn to shove her hands down my pants to check for lumps, oh, and other places. I bet you didn't know just how sexy cancer exams could be. It was a great visit. My docs told me that my PET scan was almost completely normal. They also said that the areas of concern are so small that radiation will annihilate them. My largest tumor went down from the size of two golf balls down to the size of a marble. Basically, I am the poster child for Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Whoopee!

The only negative about my health right now is that my white blood cell count is extremely low. So I have to take my temperature several times a day to make sure that things are ok. If my temperature hits 100.5 F then I have to go to the emergency room. The doctors said that in time my count will get higher. For now I have to be extra careful around people and keep my hands sanitized.

Anyway, a month from this Wednesday will mark the end of my cancer treatment, for good I hope. The chance of a full recovery for me is 85%. That's pretty damn good. Let's all hope I will be saying goodbye to cancer forever. BTW, if you connect all the dots from my tattoos you'd make a really far out Star of David.

Have a great weekend!