January 19th was Martin Luther King Day, and I remember wondering whether the cancer treatment center would even be open.
Apparently cancer doesn’t get the day off on holidays.
By then, I’d already been through my PET scan, so I knew what it felt like to be moved into one of those machines and lie perfectly still while everything happened around me. This machine was different, more complicated, and I was still nervous because day one of anything involving radiation has a way of getting your attention.
The treatment center was inside a medical office building. I’d leave work, fight twelve miles of bumper-to-bumper traffic, pull into the parking garage, walk inside, check in at reception, and sit down to wait. Eventually one of the radiation therapists would come get me, walk me back, and the routine would begin. I’d partially undress, climb onto the table, get positioned exactly where they needed me, and then everybody would leave the room.
That first time, I remember expecting the treatment itself to feel like something. Heat. Pressure. A strange sensation. Anything. It didn’t. They played music while I lay there, and the actual radiation lasted maybe ninety seconds to two minutes. That was it. For something powerful enough to treat cancer, it was surprisingly uneventful. Most days, getting there took longer than the treatment itself.
At first, every part of it felt medical and unfamiliar. Then, almost without noticing, it started feeling like a job. What surprised me most was how quickly something that had seemed enormous on the first day shrank into another part of the afternoon. I still had work to finish before I left, traffic to sit through, and a life waiting when I got home. Radiation never became normal exactly, but it became familiar. By then, even the building itself had started to feel strangely routine.
I started learning everybody’s names, and they learned mine. After a while, the people working there stopped feeling like strangers in scrubs and started feeling more like coworkers at a temporary job I never applied for.
Because I always came late in the afternoon after work, there was one problem with my shift: the good chocolate was usually gone. They kept a bowl of candy out, but by the time I arrived, the Snickers and Reese’s had usually disappeared. That was the really good stuff. After a while, somebody started keeping a secret stash for me. When they saw me walking in, one of the receptionists would grab the bag and throw a few of the good pieces into the bowl before I got there. I started telling them that was the best part of my day.
Somewhere around the halfway point, I decided the people there deserved something better than leftover candy, so I ordered about ten pizzas and had them delivered for lunch. It wasn’t a big gesture. I just wanted them to know how much I truly appreciated them.
At home, I kept a yellow Post-it pad with a number written on every sheet. Forty-five on the first one. After each treatment, I’d come home, peel that number off, throw it away, and reveal the next one underneath. Forty-four. Forty-three. Forty-two.
At first, the numbers barely seemed to move. Then I hit the thirties. Then the twenties. When I got into the teens, the end finally started feeling real. By the time I reached single digits, I wasn’t just counting treatments anymore. I was counting the days until I could walk away from that part of my life, hopefully once and for all.
The routine got easier while the side effects got harder. The radiation itself never hurt while it was happening. I couldn’t feel it entering my body or doing whatever it was doing in there. But as the weeks went on, my body knew something was happening even if the machine never announced it.
Still, I kept showing up. The people there knew my schedule, knew I was coming after work, and knew exactly when to rescue the chocolate before somebody else got to it. A couple of them eventually became Facebook friends, and I still keep in touch with them.
By the final treatment, the place that had scared me on day one felt completely different. There were hugs, goodbyes, and the kind of joking that only happens after people have been through something together. I told them I never wanted to see their faces again. They laughed because they knew exactly what I meant.
I’d spent nine weeks reporting to a temp job I never applied for. On the last day, nobody handed me a paycheck or a 401(k). They gave me hugs, wished me well, and sent me home.
For the first time in my life, I couldn’t wait to walk off the job.
