Uncle Fester

I fondly recall Uncle Fester from when I watched the Adams Family on TV as a child. He would put a light bulb in his mouth and it would light up.

There is no chance anyone can catch cancer from me, but radiation can present problems. There are two methods of delivering radiation - internal and external. My treatment is external. I am unaware of what cancers are treated with internal radiation as I've only researched my condition.

Where radiation therapy is delivered externally, there is no risk to anyone close, for example, Vicki, who sleeps in the bed next to me. However, I've read that it can be a problem for patients treated with internal radiation, with some of the commentary I've read saying they have to sleep in separate rooms and remain isolated. Along with everything else, how hard would that be?

Fortunately, my treatment is external so this doesn't affect me or those I am close to on a regular basis. Nevertheless, we do joke that as my radiation therapy progresses I can do the old Uncle Fester thing with a light bulb in my mouth (where it lights up).

I felt like this could be an issue for me because my program was altered. The benefits of radiation and chemo therapy is from the accumulated doses over time. It is administered this way so your body can cope with the treatment and [I guess] partially recover between doses.

Like many machines, the one that delivers my treatment has to be serviced, and they call this a service day (at least this is what I took it to mean). With a limited number of machines, they couldn't squeeze everyone in on the day my machine was being serviced, so, today I had two doses of radiation therapy, 6 hours apart, and hence my reference to Uncle Fester. In between I had another course of chemo.

Radiation is present in our everyday lives from a variety of natural and artificial sources. Ionising radiation is energy produced from natural and artificial radioactive materials. It occurs naturally in our lives because radioactive minerals remain from the formation of the planet, and basically means we can be exposed from certain rocks and from radioactive material in our food and drink.

We are also exposed to natural ionising radiation from outer space that passes through Earth’s atmosphere, which we call cosmic radiation.

So being exposed should not hold any fears for us, save for the obvious desire to control the risks of over-exposure to harmful radiation.

The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency provide the figure below, which shows the relative annual per capita dose to the Australian population from the various radiation sources.

Ionising radiation has enough energy to change the chemical composition of matter, such as the cancer cells in a malignant tumour. Non-ionising radiation has less energy but can still excite molecules and atoms causing then to vibrate faster and create heat. Many modern technologies such as, power-lines, electrical equipment and mobile phone systems, produce forms of non-ionising radiations.

The treatment of cancer uses artificial ionising radiation, generated by a machine called a Linear Accelerator. The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency report that there is no general property that makes artificial ionising radiation different and more damaging than the ionising radiation that comes from natural radioactive material.

While the radiation is carefully controlled by the program developed by my treating Oncologist and this very advanced machine, it is. after all, still producing radiation and injecting it through my body.

I guess harm is a relative term because the side-effects of the treatment including those I am going to be left with post treatment are, in my mind, harm. I was not troubled by them prior to treatment.

I am aware that to avoid the side-effects of my treatment, the alternative is far worse. So I accept the treatment and make jokes about illuminating a light bulb in my mouth. I figure even a poor sense of humour is helpful.

I hope that the many activities raising money for cancer research continue to be supported because, as I mentioned in my earlier article, a lot of people are going to be confronting this disease.