Pre Radiotherapy Mould

This morning I had an appointment at the Mould Clinic at Clatterbridge Hospital. As the name suggests, this is where they made a mould of the lower half of my body, a mould which I will become very familiar with over the 5 weeks of radiotherapy treatment. It was very comfy, I wonder if they will let me take it home when they have finished. The idea of the mould is to keep me in the same place each and every time that I have my daily treatment, so the tumour can be hit in the same spot each day.

There were not any obvious signs directing you to the Mould Clinic in the Cancer Centre, so a little old lady on reception took me on a bit of a tour around the centre. She said it was her excuse to have her weekly exercise so who was I to object? She took me to the Simulation unit where I met a member of the hospitals staff called Chris. Chris was somewhat scared to touch me or my clothes as I had a t-shirt on with a Manchester City emblem, and after talking about how crap Everton were at the weekend, he went on to tell me about the plans for the morning. 

He explained that I would be lay on a big bean bag which will be filled with air to form the mould around my legs. I also now have 3 pin prick tattoos on my lower half which will remain with me for the rest of my life, these are used to make sure I am correctly aligned on the machine for each radiotherapy session.

Mould and I were then sent backwards and forwards through the CT scanner several times. I wish they wouldn't make you so comfy on those things, its hard to keep my eyes open with the gentle rocking and the background whirring of the machine. Still, not as comfy as the MRI scan where they put relaxing music through your headphones for a much longer period. That one did send me to sleep briefly.

I couldn't help but notice that everyone who had an appointment was much older than I was. I'd safely say I was the only one in a room of 20-30 people under the age of 60. I'm not implying that many people my age don't get cancer, more the fact that I felt a bit like the odd one out, like people were looking at me and wondering why I was there.

So now, 10 days for them to ensure that everything is in place to administer the correct dosage of rays to the correct area, and 14 days until the visit to Clatterbridge becomes part of my daily routine. 

Here are some friends I met in the waiting room, they weren't too chatty though.