Part Two

Then I met my oncologist team for the first time. By the way, I failed to mention before that everything is color-coded at the Proton Institute. The doctors wear white, the nurses wear blue, and the oncologist team wear black.

Breanna is the radiation technologist that met me. She told me that they want me to have a full bladder prior to the proton therapy so she instructed me to drink 12 ounces of water and she would be back in half an hour to take me to the gantry. The gantry is the place where the proton machines are located. They have several gantres at the proton institute and my beginning sessions would be in the yellow gantry then I would move to a different gantry.

Thirty minute later Brianna came to get me, and she took me to the dressing room in the yellow gantry where I was instructed to change into a hospital gown.

Another aside: Hospital gowns are changing, and you can read about it in the link provided below. This may be the only area where the Florida Proton Therapy Institute may be behind other hospitals.

Hospital Gowns

I was escorted from the dressing room to the gantry room where I climbed into my premade body mold and the technicians gave very clear explanations about the entire proton therapy treatment that I was going to experience today. They told me they would work on one side today and tomorrow they would work on the other side. I was only in the body mold for about 30 minutes. Most of this time was spent making sure all the equipment was lined up. The proton beam was active for about 90 seconds.

After lying on my back for over 30 minutes in the body mold the most difficult part of the whole procedure was getting up after the treatment was complete.

The final thing that happens in the gantry is I get my appointment schedule time for the next day. Brianna also reminded me that I need to be here about 30 minutes before my appointment time so I can go through the water ritual every day. Today will probably be one of my longest days here at the institute because I had to go through a lot of introductory exercises.

I’m talking with members of my dream team to see if they will agree to their pictures being posted on my blog. I’d like to introduce them in a future post.