Today Anne had her first radiation treatment.

I just caught up with her…and where oh where do I start.

Over the course of the last week, she and I have talked about the startling paradox of radiation treatment.  We grow up being told – and thus endeavoring – to avoid radiation at all costs. It’s scary and harmful and makes us think of third appendages, brain tumors, and Godzilla.

Yet, to kill cancerous cells, the medical profession still champions radiation treatment. In big whopping doses. Which Anne got today. It’s the weirdest feeling, she relayed.

Here are the first two things Anne said to me in describing what it was like:

“It’s the closest thing to an alien abduction.”

“It’ll screw with your head.”

Admittedly, I had formed this mental picture of Anne walking into an X-Ray lab, putting on a fancy lead apron, and sitting idly as a technician pulsed a few bursts of radiation onto her left chest area.

Yeah, good Van.

Nope, not even close. A group of medical physicists painted her entire chest with runes and constellations in various colors, literally strapped her into a large radiation machine made for one, and (through a microphone from another room) instructed her to hold her breath as a huge menacing eyeball roved her body, shooting long 20-second bursts of lethal radiation at her left chest cavity.

Sounds more like a spa treatment for a convicted terrorist if you ask me.

As Anne has learned from talking with a few cancer-fighting friends she’s made during her journey, many say the experience of receiving radiation is the more difficult of the two treatments (chemotherapy being the other).

This surprised me.

“Why do you think that is?” I asked my insightful, ninja-warrior wife.

“The sense of solitude is overwhelming. You feel utterly alone. The doctors are in another room, talking to you over a microphone. Nobody wants to be where you are, in that room. With chemotherapy, you are surrounded by caregivers. With radiation, it’s you and a machine. You lie there exposed and helpless as medical physicists watch from far away. It really does feel like an alien abduction.”

As I sat here, mouth agape, transfixed on Anne’s every word, I couldn’t help but marvel at the fact that each of her words was wrapped with a smile. I wouldn’t be smiling.  Nope, definitely not.

But Anne was.

Not a fake smile. Not a “this-is-fun” smile. It was a smile that certainly seemed to emanate from a genuine love and appreciation for the advances in medical technology that are giving her hope for a long, fruitful life ahead.  But more importantly – and at a deeper level – I sensed in her smile that she knows she’s not alone.

I think I’m right about that smile. But I’ll let her tell you.

(No pressure sweetheart.)

With hope in this journey,

Van