“She won’t breathe even if you tell her to,” he told his colleague.
I was lying as still as possible on the radiation table and could hear them chatting over the speaker.
I have to hold my breath as they do the radiation so that it hits the precise area that it needs to.
At the outset of my treatment my radiation oncologist told me that I would hold my breath for 15–20 seconds at a time.
“Breathe in until you reach the green box,” they said. “The machine only delivers radiation when you are positioned correctly. If you exhale, no big deal, it just stops.”
The first day I walked in the door I held it for longer than that.
I’m not sure how long, but it was for sure longer.
Naturally, I turned radiation into a competitive sport.
The Private Game I Made Up During Radiation
Can I hold my breath for longer today than I did yesterday?
There wasn’t much about cancer treatment that I got to control.
Not the number of rounds of chemotherapy I needed.
Or the surgeries, blood draws, or how many times I had to walk into a room and take my shirt off and climb on this table.
But this, this belonged to me.
They got to tell me when to breathe in.
But I got to see how long I could hold it.
There was a little snafu when I switched to a different team doing the treatment a couple weeks ago, but this one has caught on now.
As is apparent by his explanation to the new guy in my treatment team.
I could hold my breath for the 15–20 seconds and then the machine would pause and wait for me to breathe in and hold again.
There is a little green box on the screen inches from my face that tells me exactly how much air I get to take in.
And it’s not just about the amount of air I am holding, but how steadily I can hold it.
Because the treatment needs to be precise.
So in my head I am cool as a cucumber as I breathe in and hold.
I tell the new guy as I am leaving that I think my athletic background has trained me for this.
They tell me just about every day that my breathing is impressive.
“They probably say that to everyone,” I tell myself.
But it doesn’t stop me from trying to hold it even just one second longer the next day.
I have gotten so good at holding my breath that when I go to my Monday check-in my heart rate is really really low.
The nurse asked me if I was feeling okay and I responded, “Yeah, I feel great. Just really calm.”
And I guess, how could I not.
I spend 5–10 minutes on a table every day holding my breath and thinking calming thoughts to keep my body from shaking.
I have a warm blanket draped over me so that I don’t get chilled in the room with my top off.
I have a warm towel over my arms above my head that keeps me cozy while I am doing my treatment.
There is something about the monotony of this routine that is really peaceful.
And in all my natural way of being, make it a competition.
“I want to hold my breath for the entire treatment,” I think.
I don’t even know if it is possible.
They don’t really tell me how many passes the machine will do on any given day.
And there are breaks for the machine to adjust.
But I have gotten pretty comfortable with the routine of it.
My Personal Cheerleader During Radiation Treatment
And there is one guy that has been with me through most of my treatments that knows I can do it.
I think he wants me to do it too.
He hasn’t said it out loud.
But every day he encourages me to keep going.
He tells me how well I hold my breath steady.
How impressive it is.
He tells anyone new how great it is.
He’s my personal cheerleader every day when I show up for treatment.
I don’t know if he understood how much that mattered to me.
Probably not.
To him, I was one of however many patients he had that day.
But for those few moments every morning, he understood the game I was playing.
And he played along.
This whole thing could be pretty boring and awful.
But he is there cheering me to the finish line.
Time to Exhale: Reaching the End of Radiation Treatment
And then one day the opportunity was gone and I didn’t even know it.
I remember lying on the table holding my breath.
And I was feeling really good.
I could have held it longer.
But I thought, “Eh, I’ll do it tomorrow.”
And I let my breath out.
The machine paused, as it always does.
And then I took a breath in and held.
And the machine continued.
For maybe two seconds.
Then it stopped.
That was it.
The techs came in and told me that tomorrow I switch to a different type of radiation and that the pattern would change.
Without realizing it I had lost my chance at holding my breath through the whole thing.
And I was so close to the end.
I could have done it.
I tell myself that all the time when I think about that day.
Because I had worked up to it.
I was going steady.
I let my breath out by choice.
Not because my body was screaming for air.
I feel a twinge of regret that I hadn’t held it for the whole time still.
That competitiveness in me just won’t let it go.
But there’s no way I want to go back there to that day and do it again.
I hope to never see the inside of a radiation machine again.
The Moment I Finally Let Go
I did cry on my last day there.
Not with everyone around.
I was all smiles and laughter and joy around everyone.
I was so excited to be done.
The feeling couldn’t be described.
And then we walked to the car.
My mom, my husband, and me.
And I completely lost my shit.
Broke down screaming in the car.
Ugly crying turned up to 15.
Because it was the end of treatment.
It was a day I wasn’t sure would ever come.
And it finally had.
I had done it.
It was finished.
It was over.
I had spent 10 months holding on.
Holding my breath.
Doing the next thing that needed to be done.
And suddenly there wasn’t another thing.
There wasn’t another treatment waiting for me tomorrow.
I didn’t have to hold it any more.
So I didn’t.
I sat in my car and finally let it all out.
10 months of treatment.
Finished after one last round of holding my breath.