The pre treatment required the prophylactic removal of all my lower molars due to bone damage that would occur during radiation treatment. I was miserable because ANY treatment couldn't start until my jaw healed from the oral surgery and I envisioned the tomor just growing exponentially. Then I had to be fitted with a hard plastic mesk "mask" to immobilize my head, neck and shoulders during radiation. I did not know I was claustrophobic until they snapped the mask over me to the x-ray table. I lost it - completely. Total screaming, thrashing about, crying panic. Nothing like I had ever experienced before. From that point on, I was heavily sedated during radiation treatments - all 35 of them - Monday thru Friday for seven weeks.