"The Jewish community there is amazing!"
That's a sentence I heard countless times from people who'd gone through treatment there. The thing is, Sharon and I try — as much as possible — not to lean on other people, based on the belief that whoever truly needs help should be the one receiving it.
We started to understand what everyone meant when Sharon asked on Facebook for the best way to get from the airport to our first place. A connection through a friend led to a conversation with a remarkable woman, and the answer came back: "Boris will be waiting outside for you." And he was. Boris waited outside the terminal in New York, loaded everything into the car without many words, and off we went.
We arrived too early to a very strange long-term residence — a cross between a movie hotel and a kibbutz room — and of course there was no one to check us in. Before we could even ask, an Israeli woman who lived there materialized out of nowhere and swept us all straight to her apartment. She came armed with a bag containing everything a new arrival in America needs: odd adapters, games for the kids, and more — all to soften the landing. She stayed with us for an entire day and helped with all the administrative chaos of getting started.
She helped us settle into the interesting room we'd been given, which was right next to a basketball court buzzing with players of all ages.
The next day she drove me to a series of tests, and took Sharon and the kids to rent a car. While I was busy with examinations and questionnaires — where every twenty seconds someone asks me on a scale of 1–10 how much… — and every few minutes another specialist reviews my medical file and gives me the exact same look as the one before: a look of deep empathy and endless astonishment. Then they get to the medications and recoil at the dosage, and at my ability to still walk in a straight line. Relatively speaking.
Eventually Sharon returned, armed with a new car. The kids had been connected to the waiting room Wi-Fi, and Sharon joined me for the meeting with the doctors. Toward the end, the doctor walking us through the process explained all the risks of this type of radiation — and paused at their concern about weight loss. The worry is that too little body fat causes the beam to do more damage (and any change in weight at all can reduce the precision of the treatment).
So: not the time for healthy eating. I was advised to go back to burgers, Coke, ice cream, and so on. We smiled and said that's my usual anyway, so we'll happily oblige.
The kids waited in the institute's enormous and genuinely beautiful lobby, which included a coffee and tea corner, a drawer of cookies and pretzels, a Coke fridge (very important) — basically everything a human needs to survive. And a stunning fireplace that runs even in summer.
I was given tests to do at a different hospital and told to come back in five days for the start of treatment. Light free time ahead.
After a day that was mildly exhausting for me, and apparently quite enjoyable for Sharon and the kids, we returned to our small, strange, but soon-to-be-beloved room at the extended-stay roadside motel.
We'd be moving to a different apartment later — but that comes later.
Out of necessity, as part of acclimatization — and when there's no choice, there's no choice — we spent two days at the largest indoor water park in the area. Water at a reasonable temperature (who said he hates cold water?). We walked around a bit in New Jersey, took the train for a day in New York, and then — off to treatment.
Up to that point, our idea seemed to be working. Looks like we were actually going to make some tasty lemonade, and almost effortlessly. (Reminder: this is the part before the radiation started.)
Day one —
I spent another full day answering questions, watching faces go from blank to stunned, and then came the interesting part: inside a CT machine, lying still while a bag of plaster and clay mixture was molded to create a custom cast of my upper body — so that I'd be positioned on the machine to the exact millimeter in front of the beam. And as a parting souvenir, they marked the spot with three dots using a tattoo needle. The most painful part of the entire process. I finally emerged with my own photo on a name tag, a schedule for the coming week, and a can of Coke.
Wish us luck — and we're off!
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