Tuesday morning my wife and I wound our way to the area in which the hospital does radiation therapy on the chest. We had to pass through the head and neck radiation department. There were sixty chairs lined up against two walls that ran the length of the room, and every chair was taken. The people were bald, shaved, with red lines painted on their heads and necks. It was like walking through Dante’s Inferno. It was like another world. They looked like people from outer space. They looked like a whole different civilization. I couldn’t look. I didn’t want to. It made my skin crawl.

This was not a comforting sight for someone like me who had no idea what to expect. I was ushered into a small auditorium with possibly twenty-five doctors in the audience. I sat on the podium with the radiologist; my X rays were displayed as my case was discussed. I had no comprehension of the meaning of the questions or answers, the terms were so technical. However, I did realize that they were formulating the best possible treatment for my individual case. I felt very good about this.

I was shown what appeared to be a magnificent X-ray machine and was told to lie on the table. It was explained that this machine was just a dummy with no internal working parts. It was used to set up my future treatments and to save time on the the expensive real equipment. The doctor took a Magic Marker, measured, and then put a dot on me. Then another dot and another dot. Then he connected the dots. What was he doing? There was no knife. Just a Magic Marker. I rolled over and he did the same thing on my back. He used a ruler and was very precise about it. He put different things on my chest, blocks and the like. He would find the right one and trace around it. The reason for this was so that each treatment would be given in the same location.

When the radiologist finished marking me up I looked like one of those sketches of a side of beef: the shank section here, the brisket there, the sirloin, the T-bone, the flank, and so on. It took him maybe an hour to measure me. It was all calculated by computer. There was a terminal in the room.

I was unhappy that I had not been forewarned that I would not be allowed to take a shower for two weeks so as not to wash away the red lines.

All the calculations were made, and the computer was programmed to give me my treatment. With trepidation, I went into one of the two rooms containing the real working equipment. The machines looked awesome. They were operated automatically by a computer controlled by an individual watching me on television outside the room. It took a nurse probably two minutes to get me properly positioned on each side, with lead shields sitting on my chest or back to keep the rays away from sensitive organs. The treatment itself was less than forty seconds on each side. The sensation was exactly the same as having your picture taken — absolutely nothing. I was amazed; I had expected much worse.

The doctor had warned me that there would be no feeling to the treatment, but fourteen days after the last treatment I would have the worst sore throat I had ever had. Each morning at eight o’clock I came down to this department for my treatment, a process that took about five minutes. I had the rest of the day free. During this time, my wife and I did a great deal of reading of everything we could find about cancer. In the Houston paper was an article about a clinic in Fort Worth. It was run by a husband and wife named Simonton. He was a radiologist, and she was a psychologist. Together they founded this clinic based on the premise that the mind can stimulate the immune system and help cure cancer. Being doctors, they believe in medical treatment first and foremost. However, they have developed methods of strong positive thinking that have produced an amazing track record.

As I remember it, their statistics of a test group of terminal cancer patients with no known medical treatment available showed that after two years approximately 10 percent were in complete remission, another 10 percent were improved and a third 10 percent had their cancer stabilized. To us, this was quite a revelation. We decided that if the M.D. Anderson Tumor Clinic told me they could not help me, then we would go to the Simonton Clinic. In the meantime, I would practice my own interpretation of their positive thinking and imaging.

This meant to me to picture in my mind my cancer. I pictured an ugly, black mass in my shoulder that looked something like a big glob of tar; however, it was constantly in motion like a turbulent thundercloud. In my mind I kept hitting this glob with my fist and breaking little pieces off and throwing them away. I kept picturing each treatment dissolving a little more of this glob. I kept concentrating on this type of disintegration intently. Possibly the fact that I had been told the radiation would kill 72 percent of these cancer cells each day helped this concentration.