Hotty Toddy

There are four gantries at Emory Proton Center. These are gigantic treatment areas that look like the nose of a giant space capsule. Each one has a different color. You will recall that I wrote a few days ago about my Cameroonian friend, Ndipku. He is in the purple gantry. I am usually in the orange gantry, but sometimes when the therapists get behind or there is a snafu in some of the technology, they will move me to a different gantry for that particular day. 

So I am usually in the orange treatment room, and there are five therapists who are on different shifts so that three of them are there at any given time. 

As soon as I walk into the treatment area the therapists are busy getting everything ready for my treatment. I climb onto the table and lie down. They put a wedge under my knees so that my back is more comfortable. They pull my gown down across my abdomen so that my ”tattoos” (actually Sharpie marks with tape over them) are visible. These marks are important as they assist in aligning me in the same place each day. 

I lay my head in a custom-made head rest. They place the hand pegs in place that I will hold onto firmly during the treatment (to help keep me from moving). A therapist hands me my bite block, and I place it in my mouth and pull my lips around it to get it set properly. This mouthpiece keeps my mouth in the open position during the treatment. 

Then comes the “piéce de resistance” comes out—the alien mask. After it is clamped down tightly, my table whirls out into the center of the gantry.

During this process I am talking with the therapists trying to get to know them. I asked the young lady about her education and we talked about that. Then just before they clamped the mask on me, I asked the young man named Rueben where he went to school. He said, ”Ole Miss.” That got me so excited that I sat up on the table and yelled out, “Hotty Toddy!” That was very uncharacteristic for me because that is the title of a famous Ole Miss jingle that has a couple of words in it that are not a part of my normal vocabulary. 

Nevertheless, when I said that Rueben said, ”You went to Ole Miss, too?” We delayed the treatment talking about him growing up in Pearl and about Mississippi stuff. 

Every day the Lord gives me a small gift that makes the treatment go so much more smoothly. Thank You, Heavenly Father for all the small things that You provide for us on a daily basis that many times we either don’t recognize or don’t acknowledge that they came from You. 

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. - Romans 8:28