More Pictures from My Last Day

Here are some more pictures from last day of radiation at UCLA Medical Center on January 8, 2010. In the top two pictures are my sisters Deanna and Brittany. In the first picture, Deanna and I are waiting in the waiting room for me to be called for my radiation. In UCLA's radiation department they have a circular waiting room with cameras. Instead of checking in at the front desk when you arrive, you take a seat and one of the radiation technicians will look for you in the waiting room using the cameras. At first this was strange to get use to because I'm so accustomed to always checking in at the front desk when you arrive for an appointment. Plus sometimes I would confuse the radiation technicians because I would wear different wigs or hats, so they were never 100% sure if it was me waiting in the waiting room. One time the technicians even got me confused with my sister Brittany because I was wearing a short brown hair wig that day-that was funny!

The next picture is of my sisters Deanna and Brittany also waiting in the waiting room putting together a puzzle. Every day there was always a puzzle out for radiation patients and their families to work on. We saw a few different puzzles out there during my course of radiation treatments. It was always nice to do the puzzle while waiting, in order to get your mind off of the radiation treatment.

The first picture on the bottom is a picture of my sister Brittany and I waiting by the elevators. During the peak hours at UCLA sometimes you would be waiting awhile for an elevator. The radiation department is in the basement of the medical center. They're in the basement with no windows in order to contain all of the radiation. The department even told me they have led panels all throughout the walls, so the radiation doesn't leave the building. At first it was weird to go down to the basement with no windows, but I got use to it really fast, it almost became more like an adventure, my own personal underground bat cave.

The second picture on the bottom is of my mom and I in front of the room where I would enter for my radiation treatment. They had different rooms with different letters for different types of radiation patients. I would always joke that my "D" room stood for "Danielle's Room." This room was where the radiation technicians worked and was connected to a larger room, which was where I went for the actual radiation beams. The two rooms were separated by a HUGE and HEAVY door that blocked out the radiation when I was receiving my treatment.

Thanks mom, Brittany, and Deanna for coming with me to my last radiation treatment and being amazing models!

It has been five days since my last radiation treatment and I'm still feeling really tired and my throat is still hurting just as bad. I also haven't recovered my sense of taste yet, which I'm sure you can imagine is really frustrating. You smell and imagine all of this tasty food, and then it doesn't taste very good when you actually eat it. Like the other night I went out for my favorite food-sushi, and it just didn't taste good to me. However, all of this is normal. The doctors say I have at least 10 days before I'll start to feel better, so I'm hanging in there!

Danielle