Thank you for your letters! Here is one I’d like to share:
“This summer was primarily devoted to 6 weeks of radiation, 5 days/week for my 7 year old son. Not fun, as I know that you know. Whenever I saw him on the table, miserable, I thought of your story as you told it at the lecture where I met you. I remembered how you explained exactly how you felt undergoing the treatment, wearing the mask. We refer to his as a “helmet” since he had to lay on his stomach, facing the table. I remember experiencing how your felt being “bolted” down to the table…and I feel that I understood what he was experiencing, just a bit better, because of your story. For that, I truly thank you.”
This letter reminded me of an NPR interview I heard this weekend about a doctor who was thinking outside the box about how to help children endure an MRI scan. He hired an artist to paint the MRI as a battleship. He instructed the technicians to tailor all conversation with the child to battleship lingo, as if they are the battleship controllers. They said, “We are about to take off…the motors are rolling…Close your eyes and when you open them, you will be in a new place, a new time…take a deep breath of the galactic air and hold…” When searching google images, I found this pic of an MRI designed as a Yellow Submarine. Cool, huh?
What if chemo and radiation rooms were designed the same way for children? Hey, why just for children! It would have made it easier for me, too!
