What did you actually pack for treatment day? My bag is full of things I suspect I do not need

Meningioma, treatment booked for the 4th, and I have reached the stage of anxiety where I am packing a bag as a coping mechanism. Currently in it: two books, a jigsaw magazine, three phone chargers, a blanket, dry shampoo, an entire picnic.

The letter says "you may wish to bring something to occupy yourself during the planning period" which tells me precisely nothing about how long that is or what is realistic to do with a metal frame screwed to your head. Can you read? Can you hold a book up? Is the picnic delusional?

Tell me what was actually useful on the day and what stayed in the bag.

The picnic is delusional but only because they may tell you when you can and cannot eat, mine gave me a sandwich at one point and I had brought enough food for a family of four.

Useful for me: wired headphones (the ward wifi was rubbish so anything I had not downloaded in advance was useless), a phone charger with a stupidly long cable because the socket was nowhere near the chair, and a zip up hoodie. Not useful: books. I could physically hold one but I could not concentrate on a single sentence, and with the frame on your head you cannot really tilt to look down comfortably. Audio was the only thing my brain would accept.

Agreeing on audio. I had downloaded four hours of a podcast I already knew well, which turned out to be the smart bit, familiar is better than new when your head is elsewhere.

One thing nobody said to me: bring something for whoever comes with you. My husband sat in a corridor for five hours with a dead phone and no book while I at least had nurses talking to me.

Take your glasses rather than contacts, and a top that opens at the front. I had a jumper that goes over the head and had a genuinely comical five minutes trying to get it back on after the frame came off.

Also a loose hat or scarf for going home if you are self conscious about the pin sites. Mine were two small dots and nobody on the train looked twice, but I was glad to have the option on the day.

Diane, this thread is basically the packing list I wish someone had given me, so I will just add the two things that made the biggest difference for me and let the rest stand.

First, a written list of your medications with doses, in your bag rather than in your memory, because you will be asked more than once and by more than one person. Second, ask the team the night before roughly how long the planning is likely to take for your target, not because they can promise anything, but because "two to three hours" and "most of the day" are very different things to sit through unprepared. Everything else on the practical side is gathered in the site's guide to preparing for Gamma Knife, including the bits about hair, food and getting home.

And take the dry shampoo. Not for the day, for the evening after, when you want to feel human again and have been told to leave the pin sites alone.

Back, and reporting on the bag. Books: untouched, exactly as Mark said. Podcast: saved me. Long charger cable: the single best thing I packed. Picnic: mostly eaten by my sister in the corridor, which at least means it was not wasted.

The waiting was about four hours in the end and it went faster than the fortnight of dreading it did.