Video View From Unit 8’s Treatment Control Room
Radiation Therapists Bev and Matt recorded this view from video monitors in the Control Room of Linac-8 in action during my live radiation session 19 of 33 on my birthday, the 25th of February, 2015.
The typical radiation treatment for the prostate cavity (after prostatectomy) consists of a CT rotational scan completely around the planned area in the pelvic region, followed by a radiation sequence of two complete rotations, each in the opposite direction – only the latter sequence is shown in the video below.
Click to blast off …
What I See From Inside Linac-8’s Swirling Scanners
This video was self recorded during session 25 on the 5th of March, 2015. It was a ‘dummy’ radiation scan with the beams turned off but the mechanics in full rotation. The camera source was a Samsung tablet resting on my chest.
This would not have been possible during a live radiation scan, as my Radiation Therapist astutely pointed out, because of the danger of reflection of back lobes of radiation from the tablet onto unplanned areas of the body, compromising the therapy and the patient – me! In addition, there was a potential for damage to the tablet itself.
In the video, I am lying down on my back on a platform suspended in the middle of an array of scanners and detectors that support the CT scan, radiation scan and X-rays (not used in my therapy). My head is beyond the top of the frame and my pelvis is off the bottom of the frame, directly under the focal path of the CT and radiation scanner heads (transmitters).
Click below to rev up the engines!
Looking Into The Spinning Radiation Head from My Pelvis – As If It Had Eyes!
The video above shows a view of Linac-8’s rotating transmitter/detector ‘pods’ from my chest’s point of view. The video below is what my pelvis would see, if it had eyes, during the radiation cycle – of course, it wouldn’t see the ‘photons’, just receive them under the accurate aim of my oncologist’s treatment plan.
Don’t worry – the pelvis can’t feel the photons either as they ‘smack’ those nasty cancer cells!
