Ima

welcome to the forum and sorry to hear of your diagnosis

i am now 3.5 years post treatment for a tongue based cancer that showed up as a secondary lump in a single right neck lymph node ... after many tests a primary was never found

the process of testing and treatment can be a scary one and we all deal with it in different ways

we are hear to talk you through every step

i will first and foremost send you my blog ... I wrote this all through my treatment and you may find this of some help

gammaraygary.wordpress.com/.../

there is a bit in there about the pet ct scan and the mask ..... 

shout ... as I am sure you have loads of questions .... let’s try and find the best way for you to get through your concern about treatment and the treatment itself

we are always hear to talk when you want

vatch

Hi there,

Although I do not suffer from any kind of claustrophobia, as a diabetes type 2 person who gets dry mouth easily and as a ethmoid sinus cancer patient who is currently wearing the mask on week 5 of his radiotherapy whereby he gets dry, sore, throat, one piece of advise I would give is to regulate your breathing while lying on the table with the mask on.

Try and relax your jaw and tongue under your mouth piece. I drink water before entering the radiotherapy room so that I do not choke from the sticky goo that normally enters my mouth.

I did feel a little claustrophobic once, but that is when they had a long delay while I was on the table. Saying that, you can ask them for a breather (i.e. get off the table) but that means they have to start the whole measurements thing again. In other words, in my case, there is a gap of 15 minutes between the measurements and initial scan and the ending (the blast of radio beams) whereby it is not really ideal to say you want to get off the table, unfortunately.

It might be worth asking your specialist if they have any kind of drug to make you feel reaxed/calm during your radiotherapy. Just a thought.