The loneliness of radiation

Radiation is a lonely, impersonal process. Sure, sitting in the ladies' dressing room with the other patients builds community and the friendly faces at the reception desk are welcoming but once your name is called and you walk back through the lead doors passed the numerous bright orange caution signs and drop the front of your gown and lay down on the table, you are alone. Technicans cease talking to you and concentrate on numbers, gauges, and angles. Your precious and recently assaulted breast barely healed from surgery is there not as a part of you, but as an object. After the proper dimenions are aligned, the techs announce that they will be right back and they hustle out of the room, leaving you to watch the machine as it hums, clicks and grinds and you lay there, praying, wishing it was over. Wishing it didn't have to be. Wishing that it will never happen again.