The tech lacked experience on balloon insertion, so instead of the water going into the balloon, it went all over my legs. Nancy, who probably put in the very first balloon ever inserted, looked at the problem and told Jose, "You're gonna have to take it out and start over." Oh goody. They promised me I wouldn't be charged for the extra balloon. What a deal. Two balloons for the price of one.
Which leads me to believe that tonight's the time to talk about balloons and myths.
We share our myths by telling the stories. But when we're really serious about it, we create a ceremony in which we celebrate our story through action. In religion, the ceremony is called a cultus, and it's carried out through ritual and liturgy. In Christianity, the central myth, which gives meaning to our lives, guides our ethic, and bonds us into a world-wide community, is the story of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The celebrational cultus in which we reenact that event is communion, the Lord's Supper, the Eucharist. By eating that bread and drinking that wine, we participate in that central Event and real-ize it anew. There is often something shocking about a religion's central cultus, something that those outside the group easily find offensive, and so it is with communion. We speak of eating the body of the Son of God and drinking his blood. No wonder the early Romans accused us of child abuse and cannibalism.
The proton prostate community also has its central ritual that bonds its members like nothing else can—not even their common disease. The ritual is fittingly enshrined in the name of the one group that unites us—The Brotherhood of the Balloon. At first, I found the many references to the balloon—and the many jokes made about it—amusing. Then it began to wear thin. I thought, Give it a break, guys! We sound like a bunch of junior high kids in the locker room. But now I realize the importance—dare I say the sacredness?—of that balloon. It's such a fitting ritual—invasive, embarrassing, uncomfortable, yet necessary, salubrious. It carries with it hints of homosexuality. It's offensive. But every one of us takes his balloon five days a week for as long as he's in treatment. We joke about it, complain about it, and twit each other about it. Last night, Bob Marckini, who got his treatments in Gantry 3 where I get mine, told the group that Gantry 3 is obviously the best of all and that the other gantries are supplied with our second hand balloons—it's a matter of ecology. But for all the jokes, that balloon is our uniting sacrament. We come from all racial groups, all economic strata, many states and foreign countries. We're young (OK, 40s) and old, fat and thin, sound and crippled. And we all get our balloon. We are, indeed, the Brotherhood of the Balloon.
So tomorrow at 2:00, I'll strip away my mundane street clothes and don the sacred alb that ties at the neck and leaves my buttocks open to the world. I'll enter the inner sanctum where the priest-like techs in their white jacket vestments busy themselves about the paraphernalia of my healing. I'll mount the altar-like table on which rests my pod and assume The Position. I'll receive my balloon—that symbol of my membership—and I'll lie back in a dead-man's pose while my pod and I move mysteriously into the heart of the gantry, there to receive the terrible, healing beam of protons. And I'll know that I'm being cured, and more, that I'm being healed. I'll know that I belong.
I have my story, my cancer is being destroyed, I have a brotherhood. I have received my balloon.
Treatment count: 28 down, 17 to go.
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