After all the preparations are made and checked, the team leaves the room. Corinne is alone. She waits for the buzz of the machine to signal her that the damaging rays have begun to strike her. She can’t see. The mask holds her eyes shut and a heavy, rubbery “bolus” covers her face to concentrate the rays on her skin.

She can’t feel the radiation. She is never more aware that a few hidden cancer cells may be dividing again in her body, massing for a new attack. She is afraid of what the radiation, itself, might later cause to happen in her body.

She remembers that visit in Germany, the same week the Chernobyl nuclear power plant blew up in the Soviet Union and the winds blew west… she remembers the terrifying warnings.

Though she feels no impact now, she knows that she will feel exhausted and sore this evening. The awkward position of her neck on the plastic brace begins to create knots in the muscles of her back and pain at the base of her skull. Then the treatment is over. Tomorrow is another day.