Nicki, I think this is one of the areas where it is worse to be the caregiver than the patient. I am not claustrophobic, so had no problem with the mask, and like everything else, after one does something a couple of times, it gets to be routine. I, too, slept a lot and many times the techs had to wake me up. If for some reason I had to choose to have surgery, rad, or chemo again, I would choose rad because it was by far the easiest. You and Tom will get though this just fine.