Oliver Dale .net ——–Homepage of SFF Writer Oliver Dale——–

One of the bad days.

I work in a cancer center.  I am a medical physicist (some day I’m going to write up a detailed post on what the hell that is and why you’ve never heard of me), and so my patient involvement is touch and go.  Some procedures I’m intensively involved with, others I am very behind the scenes.

The first thing people comment on is how depressing my job must be.  Okay, actually, when I tell them I’m a medical physicist their first reaction is: Whoa! You must be smart. …  What the hell is a medical physicist?  Then they comment about how my job must be depressing.  But, to be truthful, it really isn’t.  Many of our patients come in to our center as fighters.  One of my most favorite aspects of this job is doing HDR treatment for breast cancer patients.

It is a relatively complicated procedure and so physicists are very involved at every stage: simulation, planning, and treatment. In the other parts of the department, radiation therapists (who are the hardest working employees of a radiation therapy center) get to see patients daily. But HDR is where I get to.  And breast cancer patients are among our best.

Often young–due to improved screening processes–they are warriors. They come in smiling and they almost always leave that way, no matter what horrible things we do to their bodies in our attempt to heal them. 

But cancer in general is an older person’s disease.  The years add up, each moment a roll of the dice.  The longer you live, the more times you roll the dice. 

Today we have one of our older patients in for the treatment of a large tumor at the base of his skull. He is not entirely oriented. He has been incapable of walking for a few years now and is carted around in a wheelchair by his daughter. The only glimmer of his personality we see is when the therapist asks him if he is ready for treatment, and he shakes his head slightly.

His daughter coaxes him along, promising ice cream when they are done. The therapist wheels him to the treatment vault. Her voice is singsong, cheerful. They are both talking to him like he was two years old.  I suppose, that’s not far from the truth. 

There are moments when this job is depressing, and this is one of them. But usually it is not.  Usually, our days are pretty good.