Buzz, clunk hiss, the machine rotates around me as I lie, semi naked on a platform which itself clunks and judders me into position for the first dart of radiation aimed at the malignant cells laying inside my prostrate gland.
I never knew I had such a thing as a prostrate until having visited the doctor he described its inhibiting, slightly crushing effect on my urethra, the tube which carries my pee from the bladder. Many men in their late 50s begin to have problems when going
to the toilet and back in 2008 I had begun to plough that furrow, the first of many to the doctors surgery. Up to that point I had prided myself from being 'doctor free' and assumed, as we all do that the present will continue into the foreseeable future.
There were no sign of the dark clouds building on the horizon, the assumption of a lifetime was that the body could be relied upon, even when all else was breaking around you. That reliance we have and make up, that our bodies no matter how damaging our use
of the body was, the beers we drank, the food we ate, the lack of proper exercise it was all just part of an ideocentric game we played in what was then our fun filled extravagant lives.
Buzz clunk hiss the machine springs to life measuring its target positioning its strong death dealing rays in the appropriate area an area of the body unfortunately too close, to the vital daily functioning of that 'waste disposal' function which, by
the marvel of evolutionary design are clustered in our nether region, a sort of sewerage plant close to their intertwined cousins who's job is to replace this old life with new.
The accuracy of the attendants positioning of the body and the stillness we are encouraged to assume is important whilst, buzz clunk hiss, the robotic machine seeks out the tumour. Its crucial, as is a full bladder which apparently helps distance some
of the organs away from the sizzle of the X-ray. Maybe in an emergency it will put out the fire.
Passive and enthralled by this surreal event we lay and wonder at our predicament. No longer the proud upright homosapien, we are reduced to a a partially naked piece of meat, laid out on the table for all to see and compare notes. Buzz clunk hiss the
'procedure' continues as a string quartet sounds through hidden speakers playing the same miscellany of tunes in an effort to calm the nervous and entertain those with an ear for this kind of thing. The meat is still trying still to maintain its dignity even
whilst under the gaze of the young nurses and reflects that having become the centre of a scientific marvel, one must at least try to find out how it all works. Scrambling to put on trousers and readjust to meeting the outside world I want to know why the.
X-ray beam isn't static like some sort of laser gun. I am told that the three dimensional aspect of the prostrate requires a three dimensional attack but how does it miss the cluster of bits and pieces close by which are getting on minding their own business
but which, to my untutored mind might fall foul of a rotational Star Wars type attack. No one seems to have the answer and, as with so much in medicine, one is required to pipe down and let the experts get on with the business of tampering with what, up to
that moment you had thought was yours.
The machine gives a sort of sigh when it has finished, as if reluctant to let you go, the surrounding bits and pieces withdraw, the bed quietly moves you out of the mechanism and you are free to escape emerging to the sound of the chirpy muse reminding
you,
"see you tomorrow John".
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