Mummy alive

You see the mummy's of ancient Egypt and you say, "Cool anything is possible when you are dead!" BUT how about being a mummy while you are alive? Let me tell you how it is.
You all know what a cat scan doughnut looks like . . . and the table you lie on that moves you in and out? So there I am in front of the machine and it has a blue bag on it that looks like a deflated air mattress. OK this is going to be comfortable . . . wrong! You lie down and then it is filled with something akin to quick-set cement. It blows up and when every nook and cranny is filled in from above your shoulders to beneath your feet (arms straight and close at your side, legs close together) the three techs push it as tight as they can get it and then the "cement" hardens. Nothing can move not even a hair.
Then just when you think, OK, I still have my head they bring this heavy mesh connected to a very large horse shoe and say, "Pretend this is a spa treatment. It's warm and will cover your entire face and neck". Then they stretch this over your face and lock the horse shoe to the table.
Your body streams, I can't breath, but your mind yells = don't be crazy, just relax. THEN comes the cold towels. They are placed over the mesh so it too will harden like cement. After that takes way tooooo long they trace your eyes and mouth and un-clamp the horse shoe. Oh, air how sweet and moving your head, how wonderful.
After they put tape around the three opening to make the rough cuts not so rough (ha!) back goes the clamping of the mask and now you are moving into the machine.
The only way to survive is to take your mind to any happy place you can find and stay there. I was like that for about an hour and the REAL treatment will be an 11/2 hours twice a day.
WHY - you ask? AND how is it you have never heard of this before? If all goes well I will be part of a year old trial for the radiation part of my therapy. This machine is the only one in the world and the reason you cannot move at all is that the laser beams target only your bones instead of your whole body. This protects your vital body organs which is the problem with the total body radiation. There are 15 people in the trial so far and I will be #16. I will be the oldest as the oldest before me was 61 but they all feel that I am a very young 62 year old. Yea for exercise and never smoking etc. Three have not made it so the average is the same 20% as with the high dose chemo. I will be doing both. The radiation is an added help in keeping the leukemia from not returning. I have one more test that will help us decide if it is worth the risk and that will be a CT scan next Friday.
If we go for radiation I will check in on Sunday the 24th, if chemo only, then Monday the 25th.
It's amazing what you can make yourself do when your life is at stake . . . don't try this at home just take my word for it!
The blasts in the marrow are somewhere between 6 and 4%. We will find out exactly on Monday when we go back for more Mummy time. Please keep sending up those prayers.