staring at the ceiling...

I started my Radiation treatment today. I went in for "staging" last week and earlier this week, so today they were ready to add the beam. Once the machine started, I became a bit anxious laying on the flat table, my legs securely held in their form-fit foam mold, my hands above my head holding onto two pegs. The head of the machine rotates around your body, giving off what sounds like a horn noise when the beam is shot. You think about lying perfectly still, breathing evenly so the beam is "shooting" only it's intended target and nothing else. I realized after awhile that their is someone in control back there, like the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain, who could stop the beam if I freaked out and moved. To take away the anxiety and keep myself calm I sang hymns in my head as I stared at the cross on the ceiling. Seems they had to cut a cross out of the ceiling tile directly above to let these two red beams shine through. I think they're for lining-up purposes. But it's a perfect cross, and a symbol to me that I should pray. So I sang hymns, prayed and chanted "kill cancer" for the however many minutes the machine moved around my perfectly still body. You can't feel anything, but I imagine the cancer cells inside of me are getting whacked off, dissolved by the fog-horn zap of the beam. Let's hope so.