Kenny & his alter ego Marvin |
You gonna get it dude! |
We are enjoying 3 days without going for treatments. Thought we would introduce you to another member of the Kenny & Sammy team. Marvin. His birthday is 11/22/11. To our numerology friends he’s special because he has a unique ‘master number’ (11). I am an 11 too. Ken is a 9. Haha.
You can read more about how Marvin was born in the archives under 11/22 posted on Dec. 4th (Mask making). Yes, Marvin is Ken’s radiation mask. He plays a very important role in each treatment. The radiology team has a very detailed plan of where the beams concentrate their effect to look after the demise Teddy & Lenny. That said, Ken’s head and shoulders must stay completely still to minimize the effect on healthy cells. Sure, treatments sound straightforward and effortless at 10-15 or so minutes each. But imagine being inside Marvin the whole time. And yes, those are clamps on the side so you have no option of getting out before the technicians come back in the room. Anyone with a claustrophobic tendency (Ken) needs to become skilled at going to a happy place. This is where our theme song of the day came from as mentioned in earlier posts. Some people have them cut out the eyes and mouth area to help with that. We both visualize our own laser beam focus on this battle and have the death stare locked and loaded on the cancer cells.
A better mask explanation from a blog we’ve found of a retired Air Force member who has been through the throat cancer journey: “I’m writing the President and letting him know I’ve found a new enhanced interrogation technique that makes water boarding obsolete. If we want answers to any questions just send the guilty party down to the radiation office and have them fitted with a radiation therapy mask, after 20 minutes they’ll be singing like birds.”
If Ken’s face changes too much due to weight loss, he will need to get a new mask made. This gives him great incentive to keep eating even when he doesn’t feel like it. Well that and the guy who came walking out of radiation with no gown on with his feeding tube swinging back and forth. Dude…really??!! Yuck!
And the good?? news…we get to bring Marvin home when treatments are finished. They say some people nail it to the fence and shoot it. Well we won’t be doing that. Our thought for now is to paint the Boston Bruins logo on him since Ken is a Montreal Canadiens (Habs) fan and they are fierce rivals. Then he can shoot hockey pucks at it! Or we can line it with plastic and drink beer out of our 'Stanley Cup'...since my Leafs haven't done that lately! Anybody looking for a Halloween costume idea?!
Xx
S
"A bend in the road is not the end of the road... unless you fail to make the turn."
~ Unknown