The man in the high-tech mask

Life has been quite busy since I last posted on Wednesday. That evening we were invited around to Michael and Sue's for 'Gewurtztraminer and onion tart'. I took this as a small snack and drink before returning home for our supper; not a bit of it! We staggered the fifty yards home, hours later, under the influence not only of the Gewurtz, but another bottle and a lethal dessert later.

I'm sure I hadn't recovered from this by next day lunchtime, when we met at the Venn ranch for a Majorca trip reunion. Of course, the food and drink were themed accordingly, and yet again a good time was had by all. Unfortunately we had to leave to drive up to Bristol for an appointment first thing this morning and, in my role as back seat driver, I really couldn't drink much more than a glass of sangria:-)

When I had radiotherapy to my neck, at the start of this year, it involved making a plaster cast of my head, from which a plastic mould was made. This is used to keep the head and neck still and precisely located under the xray beam. The process took about half an hour with the plaster; about three hours and a couple of elapsed days in the workshop to make the plastic mould, and a second visit to check the fit before treatment could start. This time we were confronted by a perforated purple plastic sheet in a frame, which was immersed in water at 70 degrees for two minutes and then clipped to the table and moulded around my head . There was an eight minute wait while it cooled and set, and that was it - a mould ready for use next door under the planning xray machine! The new process saved a couple of elapsed days, a second visit, and hours of technician time.

I don't really understand the physics of x-ray but gather that these machines include a feature called 'skin sparing', whereby the radiation envelope is weaker at the skin than it is inside the body. However in my case I have quite a few lesions on the skin itself, which I was going to have surgically removed. The radiotherapy consultant suggested that, by wrapping a layer of material around the outside of my head to act as a false skin, the skin proper would receive a full dose, and hopefully the lesions would be removed at the same time as the internal lesions are treated. Obviously I couldn't see what was happening from inside the mask, but I could hear lots of tearing of material, and cutting of sellotape, while the extra layer was applied. I couldn't help but be amused by the contrast between the high-tech equipment and calculations being employed to calculate the dose of radiation required, and what sounded like the cast of Blue Peter having a field day with old egg boxes and sticky tape!

We also sorted out the appointment times for the next two weeks, which included slipping the start date to Tuesday, thus enabling me to keep the long-awaited and twice-postponed appointment at the pain clinic in Exeter.

The only thing left to organise now is a hat, or hats to cover my naked scalp when the hair comes out. This apparently happens about three weeks after treatment starts. I haven't been especially attracted to some of the ideas put forward by some of you, especially in pink; the problem is that everything I look at on the web is being modelled by someone thirty years younger and a lot more handsome than me - why don't they get Joe Public to wear this stuff, I wonder?!