Radiation Week Five, Getting to Know Ylva (Patreon)

So, Week Five begins.

First, for those of you who are gamers, I want to point you to a charity bundle colleagues have put together to also hep me cover costs and expenses. It's got more than $1,000 worth of games, including core rulebooks from multiple publishers, all for less than $30. Check it out - https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/473197/Owen-KC-Stephens-is-RAD-BUNDLE

(Or, of course, you can donate directly through my GoFundMe or Ko-Fi, or if you haven't yet, become a paid member of my Patreon.)

So, I have now done 19 days of intense radiation therapy over 4 weeks. Today begins week 5. I'll be done early in week 7. I'm more than halfway there.

Over time, I have come to know what to expect. Which is mostly "table too hard, bladder too full, everything too tiring." (Yes, there are other unpleasant side-effects, ranging from muscle aches to the risk of biomass shooting out of any and every orifical with less warning than I'd like. Those can be mitigated with prescriptions, though not eliminated, and I expect them all to improve in the weeks after my treatment ends.)

In addition to coming to understand how my body is rebelling against me having part of it bombarded by high-energy X-rays, I have begun to recognize the noises and motions of Ylva, the linear accelerator itself.

Yep, Ylva, the name I'm using for the machine that treats my innards like leftover pizza in a microwave.

I'm strapped into the same machine every time, and once last week she was cranky. The technicians (both women that day) kept saying "she needs a nap," and "she didn't get enough rest over the weekend." I asked if they thought of the machine as a "she," and they both admitted they did. I asked if they had a name for her.

They both paused. The one said "I mean, if we DID have a name we use for her, I don't think I could professionally say it in front of a patient."

For the curious, with origins in Scandinavia "Ylva" is a girl's name meaning “she-wolf.” Shakira brought attention to this name in 2009 with her hit song, She Wolf.

I mean, I strongly suspect the technicians use a different word meaning "she-wolf" when Ylva is acting up and giving them grief, but I'm not going to go around insulting the machine being used to try to save my life. Yeah, Ylva leaves me increasingly tired --often so tired I can't think, write, or even generate the energy to cry --but that's her job.

And it sure as shooting sounds like she might have a connection to Valkyries, and I'm not insulting the friends of the choosers of the dead either. On the day the Reaper comes for me, whenever that is, I'll fight like hell. But I'll also politely call her "ma'am."

(This art is now how I picture Ylva the Linear Accelerator Valkyrie looks while tearing the shit out of the monster/tumor in me. So, yeah, there may be some collateral damage to nearby civilians, namely me, but it sure looks like she's getting the job done! Art by Николай Акатов.)

Okay, it took me the entire weekend to write this, and now I need to try to sleep. In a few hours, I need to Poison the Monster (chemo) and go face Ylva's Unholy Fire.