Hi. My name's Jesse Robert Van Den Dungen. This is the story of my day-to-day experience
of radiation treatment for a malignant brain tumour, which took place at Peter MacCallum.
Now that surgery and chemotherapy had finished, all that was left for me to do was to travel,
for an hour, to Peter Mac and have my brain irradiated to ensure that the tumour never
returns.
I needed to have the treatments six times a week. This meant that I had to endure the
torturous long car trips with mum. There were times when she would just talk and talk and
talk.
I learned to dull myself to it after the first few journeys. If ever anyone joined us for
the trip she'd be really silly. I used to get really embarrassed.
“What about if that truck in front of me, it's doors burst open and there were guys
with balaclavas and everything and they said stop! Ha ha! I want your car!”
When we finally got to the centre the friendly car park attendant would greet us with the
standard 'Hello gang!' and give us our ticket and we'd drive through.
Mum would stay in the car and I'd walk up the cold grey car park to the lift that would,
without fail, submerge me into the bowels of the radiation treatment centre.
Today was my last day. To celebrate my body thought it would be nice to give me laryngitis.
Just my luck.
Hey, that's my Dad. He was so happy that all my treatment was over. He and mum really got
a beating when they first heard the news that I had a brain tumour. But finally that was
all behind me.
As I walked down the hallways to the machines, I was reminded of all my experiences with
the great treatment team who helped me, joked with me and loved me, throughout my time at
Peter Mac.
It made me feel a sort of hopeful sadness, that I'd never see them again.
But ultimately, I was quietly and contentedly feeling joy and triumph.
Whenever my Dad came with me to the waiting room he'd make a futile attempt at completing
a 400 piece puzzle on the bench. I could feel that the whole event of my treatment made
my old man, at times exceedingly anxious.
I was glad to not, through no fault of my own, be a stress to him anymore.
Ahh. The machine. I take a seat on the bench and lay back. The oncologists would slide
a foam pillow under my legs and hand me a set of Christmas style jingle bells. This
was supposed to reassure me that if anything went wrong, they'd only have to listen for
the feint sound of jingling bells over those noisy gizmos and gadgets running and they'd
come pulsing down the hall to my rescue.
What do you mean, 'If anything goes wrong?' I thought.
So, they'd strap my head to the table to ensure that any movement was impossible as the radiation
penetrated my face scowl. Normally this would be a terrifying experience for anyone but
fortunately the actual treatment didn't make me feel any pain at all.
But the dramatic, serious side of having a cancerous brain tumour coupled with the longevity
of treatment overcame me and I wasn't able to stop myself shedding a few tears under
the cover of my plastic mask.
The team would line up my head with the cross hairs using the most high tech alignment devices.
That's right – baggage tags. Oh well, it does the job.
As I lay back, I listened to the machine rotate around me. This made me feel like a bunny.
As my head slid down and away from the machine's field, I felt the powerful feeling of complete
relief. I am done. The final closure of my treatment.
A fair amount of quiet pride and dignity washed over me.
I owe a big thank you to everyone at Peter MacCallum for the kindness and warmth with
which they treated me.
And a special, huge mega thanks to Rachel Watson, Nicole Milessi, Nathan Muskett and
all the other radiologists who helped me through treatment and were very cooperative with my
requests to film. And just for being generally, I don't know, great people.
Thanks.