NEXT STOP - PROTONS AT LOMA LINDA
The week after Christmas, the "other half" of my treatment began. I spent the Christmas holiday with my family at my sister-in-law's house in Lompoc. We planned to do this because Lompoc is half way from our house to Loma Linda, so the drive would not be so long. The Saturday after Christmas I drove to Colton, where I had arranged to rent a furnished apartment at the Centrepointe Apartment complex. Earlier I had looked around for someplace to stay, and Centrepointe had shown up on the Internet, so I went there to take a look. I was greeted at their office by Denise Brown, who explained to me that they had a special rate on furnished apartments for Loma Linda patients. I was very impressed with the apartments, and with Denise's understanding of my needs as a patient, so it was not a difficult decision to rent an apartment there.
On Monday morning, December 29th, I reported to the Proton Treatment Center at Loma
Linda. I will not try to give a detailed explanation of the "how's and why's" of
proton therapy. I think that Nick DeWolf has done an excellent job of this in his web site. I will say that the staff and
doctors at the center, officially known as the Department of Radiation Medicine, are
very competant, and genuinely friendly, and interested in their patients.
The first picture below is a view of LLUMC, followed by a picture of the
reception area for the Proton Center.
Next are pictures of models of the cyclotron and the "switch yard"
used to send the protons to the treatment rooms. A cyclotron is basically an "atom
smasher" which can accelerate protons to almost the speed of light. The cyclotron at
Loma Linda can produce protons that have an energy of up to 250 MEV (Million
Electron Volts). It is hard to appreciate the size of this equipment from these photos,
but the cyclotron fills a room that is 40 by 40 feet, and the whole system requires more
that one million watts of electric power!
Next, here are my three radiation therapists, Marvin, Sharon and Sean, and me at the
business end of the "proton machine."
The strange looking affair that I am lying in is an immobilization pod, and the large
"tunnel" around me is the rotating gantry which positions the proton beam.
After explaining to my therapists that I am an engineer, and very interested in nuclear physics, I was rewarded by a visit by Ed Schultz, who is the technical manager of the proton center. He told me that if I waited until after Noon, I quite possibly could get a little guided tour of the facility. Well, it goes without saying that wild horses could not have gotten me away from that place before Noon! My patience was rewarded when Ed showed up at about 12:30 and spent twenty minutes (of his lunch hour!) showing me the very impressive equipment which makes proton therapy possible! Here is a picture of Ed.
