The Beginning

As I walk in the Texas Oncology Cancer Center, I hear my footsteps clacking on the sterilized, modern floor, echoing through the empty lobby. A volunteer at the information desk greets me cheerily. I suddenly feel self conscious, as I am dressed in a sloppy t-shirt and jeans. My newly short hair, chopped off in preparation to fall out from the chemo, is pulled up in a messy ponytail, barely long enough to be contained by the rubber band. This was the best I could do in the five minutes I had to get ready, being that I was woken up by a phone call from my husband at work, reminding me to get up to go and receive radiation. I mutter a "hello", and force a smile. I walk into the waiting room, scan the barcode on my "cancer card" ID, and wait to be called back. Before I can even sit down, the tech appears at the door calling my name. 
"Mrs. Zarate?" 
I follow her down the corridor. She smiles. "How are you feeling today?" She asks. I force another smile, and reply "I'm good, thank you." That is the usual socially acceptable response. No one wants to hear that I have been asleep for the last 12 hours, after being up for over 36 hours following my first chemo I received two days prior, and I haven't had a vomit-free day in over a week. I spare her the gory details. 
She leads me into the radiation room, which has enough medical equipment in it to resemble a NASA command center, with a table in the center of the room. I have been receiving radiation for over a week now, I know the drill. She holds up a towel to my waist as a divider while I stand, and slide my jeans down just past my hips, stopping at my pubic bone, to expose my stomach in all its pudgy glory, complete with the three "x" marks drawn in permanent marker, and covered with clear, waterproof tape. They, along with the scars on my chest from the surgery to place my port, are new additions to my body. Reminders every time I look at myself naked in the mirror that I have cancer. I lay on the sheet that covers the table, and look up at the ceiling. There is a lighted mural of a beautiful blue sky with clouds and branches of a cherry blossom tree. I have to admit it is a nice touch, much better than staring at sterile ceiling tiles.
The tech puts a block between my feet, and wraps a Velcro strap around them to hold them in place. She says "one more day after today, and then you get the weekend off and won't have to see us until Monday." I don't respond. Five days a week I come to this place. I drive 35 minutes in heavy Dallas traffic, only to lay on this table for 10 minutes for radiation. The commute is longer than the treatment, the irony isn't lost on me. 
After the tech wiggles me in place, ensuring that the laser beams line up to the "x"s on my tummy, she retreats behind the thick glass wall that shields herself from the dangerous radiation waves that I'm voluntarily getting directly beamed into my midsection. The room is quiet, except for the low husky voice of Janis Joplin crooning about her tryst with a man named Bobby McGee, and the song reminds me of my mother. Suddenly the machine above my head whirrs to life, getting into place to begin orbiting around my body, as if my womb has a cancerous gravitational pull. I look past the machine to the mural, it really is quite lovely. I wish I was really laying on the grass at the base of a cherry blossom tree, looking up sky. Between Janis Joplin and the machines buzzes and whirring, I try to lay completely still, and then my mind starts to wander. How could I have known one month ago, almost to the day, that I would receive the news that my reproductive organs where trying to kill me, and that I would be laying here on a hard table, staring at a fake sky while a machine sends radioactive waves through my body?
I had went to a fertility specialist in hopes to expand our family, only to be told that not only would that never be a reality, but that there was a battle I would have to fight just to be able to stick around and raise the one child I do have. It seems like all my deep contemplating comes to me during my times on this table. I would never carry another child inside my body, never feel another kick, and never create another unique person that shares half my DNA, and the other half from the man I married, the person I love. The finality of that revelation is jarring.
Did I really ever want another child? Or did I feel it was my duty both as a wife, and as a mother not to make my daughter an only child? I thought of myself starting over with a newborn, the constant 24 hour care, lugging around diaper bags and car seats, in addition to the busyness of my current life, with work, shuttling Nani to and from school, housework, piano lessons, church functions, etc. I will never have to make that decision, that decision has been made for me by my uncooperative body. The truth lies somewhere in between.
The machine comes to a stop, the table begins to shift, inching left, right, up and down, as the tech behind the glass adjusts it remotely, jiggling my body in the process. The machine whirrs to life once more, instead orbiting in a counter-clockwise motion, as my interlaced fingers that rest just below my breasts become sweaty. The music has changed, and now The Righteous Brothers are singing Unchained Melody. Why do they play oldies music? Does it have anything to do with the fact that I have yet to see a patient in the lobby that doesn't look like they collect social security? I am by far the youngest person I have seen here, and at 31 years old, I'm the exception to the rule. Even though I know it is all in my mind, I feel the heat that emanates from the machine, warming my insides and zapping the cancer. I feel like I am on a cross between a microwave and a rotisserie, roasting my uterus so that it shrinks, making the surgery to remove it in a few months a much easier task for my surgical oncologist. 
The whirring finally stops, and the table begins to drop down to its resting position. The tech comes out of her glass bunker, and unstraps my feet. She grabs my arm to help me sit up, and I stand to adjust my jeans back onto my hips. "Okay, we will see you tomorrow!" Her cheeriness annoys me, and immediately after that thought a twang of guilt hits me. It isn't her fault, she is trying her best to make me feel comfortable. As a nurse myself, I know the daily burden of seeing people at their worst, and trying to give them comfort. This situation isn't fun for either one of us. I try a more genuine smile. "Thank you! See you tomorrow!" I grab my purse and walk out, making my way though the building to my truck, preparing myself to battle rush hour traffic in downtown Dallas.