Fifty Nifty

Radiation:
No, you don't feel the beams going into you, it is just extremely awkward. You're laying on a table in your body form (not to be confused with body bag) and have your arms up by your head holding two poles. They open the top part of my gown to see my 6 markings they put all over my body to show where to line me up exactly each time (these markings and stickers have to stay on till I am done with radiation). You then get a belt...no not a belt at all.....you then get a girdle that they pump with air so you won't breath heavy. Let me just tell you, this doesn't help the breathing situation. If you're ever in an awkward position at a dr and they tell you to breath normal, the first thing you do is breath not normal...that's your brain laughing at you. However, in my case and where my tumor is (literally the worst possible location) one small movement and the beam goes just a millimeter the wrong way and it hits a pretty important body part such as my heart and esophagus etc.
With this being said, in my case it is extremely important I breath "normal". I couldn't do it the first time, I tried everything I could think of. My second treatment I decided to try and think of other things. I tried counting the tiles on the ceiling....but then ran out of tiles because I can't move my head to see them all, I tried to close my eyes and not think about the massive machine moving around me....nope still didn't work. Then I attempted singing, DEFINITELY not out loud because I wouldnt want to scare off any of the nurses...and well, that would mean my mouth would me moving anyway. So here comes the fun part. I couldnt just sing an easy song my brain knows naturally like the ABC's or Jingle Bells...I can sing those in my sleep. I had to think of something that wouldn't come easy and that would keep my brain thinking of just that and not multi task like I can with Christmas or educational songs : )
Don't ask me how or why, but I somehow started singing "The Fifty Nifty United States" song we learned in elementary school and performed in a school event. I'm not much of a geography fan and have only traveled to 3 states so knowing them by heart and in alphabetic order really isn't at the top of my priority list...I mean my brain would totally rather use that space for Christmas songs. It's a song i literally have to concentrate on to sing and so far it's helped focus on breathing correctly...because when you don't, it all goes downhill. Let's just say I am going to be an alphabetizing and state pro by the end of 5 weeks!