Feel The Power

The technician manipulated the arm of the x-ray machine around me. He was wearing one of those lead aprons, which, apparently protected certain parts (don’t ask me what, at my age then), from radiation. The apron gave protection from all that random, dangerous radiation, flying around in every burst, at least for him, but not for me? Did that ever concern you? I know I had a lot of breaks and injuries, and I probably had more than my fair share of x-rays, but, was I being constantly bombarded in an unprotected burst of radioactive exposure? Of course I was. But I was a child. I’ll probably grow out of it. Or grow maybe. Doesn’t radiation create massive city destroying monsters? I know that it was always because of the radiation the creatures mutated. Could I mutate in the future?

The x-ray technicians would position everything, while wearing these heavy stiff aprons. Then, once they had moved the sights, inserted the photographic plates, focusing the cross hairs (on my face this particular time), they would step back behind a wall with a small window in it, saying, “Hold still”. Then the click, clunk, Whirr and after a short pause, they would step out again. Supposedly after the radiation had stopped flying around. It was obvious they knew the machine was not perfect. They could focus it roughly in the direction of the injury, but there was still a chance it wouldn’t be quite right. Hence they hid behind the wall. It always seemed strange to me that there was a window in that wall. Obviously it must have been made of special glass, which stopped the radiation from leaking through? Why didn’t they build the whole room like that then. Why did they have to go and stand behind a wall? Why was I left lying under the arm of the machine like a modern day sacrifice to the greater power? Something special about the glass? Or, so you would think. I was told some years later, when older and curious about the actual mechanics of what they were doing, that there was nothing special about the glass at all. It was one of those arguments, that, the radiation was flying around from the machine, the ‘chances’ of it actually passing through the window space was pretty huge.

Chance? I was always told you don’t take chances, particularly with radiation. The chance of radiation bouncing through the gap where the window was, was very, very high, but it was possible? People (particularly the technicians) have to ask themselves about the risk? If it is like throwing a ping pong ball through a small window on the third floor, Then that should be fine. Very little chance of succeeding. Until you got it? Then it wouldn’t be too hard to keep hitting that same spot again and again. They call that ‘getting your eye in” and if you were talking radiation, then the idea that the random radiation could follow a specific movement and since it’s the same head in the window, the technician could be getting it in his eye!

(Continued tomorrow)