HealingWell
Search Close Search
☰

radiation treatment ???

Support Forums
>
Prostate Cancer
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply
❬ ❬ Previous Thread |Next Thread ❭ ❭
Posted 2/2/2009 8:38 PM (GMT 0)
went to the local doc today,he was more then a little miffed about bringing in our urologist,who has  said to set up for radiation treatment asap.we live 7 hours away from the cancer clinic.so would like to how long ,what to expect ect

thanks for any info.

dee in a small town bc.

Posted 2/2/2009 8:51 PM (GMT 0)
I see you are a relatively new member with only five posts, do you have a thread somewhere that has some background concerning your particular situation.

Scott
Posted 2/2/2009 9:03 PM (GMT 0)
Waterloo...your hubby's rising psa after surgery is almost doubling every three months. In my opinion I wouldn't wait. I know that distance looks like it might be an issue for you, so I would explore any and all treatment locations available to you. But again...I am with your uro on this. A 3 month doubling of psa is not good...it's aggressive.
Posted 2/2/2009 9:36 PM (GMT 0)
My father had salvage radiation and the treatment was 7 1/2 weeks. The decision was very difficult, because my husband I preferred to have him at a major cancer institute, but because of his location, he didn't want to be away from home for 2 months, so he decided to have treatment in S. Oregon. He had morning appts. and would go before work 5 days a week. The nurses and staff are typically very helpful with coordinating appt. times to work for you. My father worked all through his radiation and experienced a little fatigue and diarrhea that resolved with the help of Imodium. He also drove himself to the appointments. Good luck and keep us posted!
Posted 2/2/2009 9:53 PM (GMT 0)
Les, my thinking would be along your lines, that kind of doubling post surgery would usually be construed as fairly agressive, if it were me personally, I would not want to delay the radiation treatments.

Waterloo - that is one of the problems when patients live in rural areas and are far from major treatment centers. Do you have any relations or good friends closer to the far away treatment centers? I know it would be hard/expensive to live away that far from home for 2 months or so. I sincerely hope you have other options.

David in SC
Posted 2/2/2009 9:58 PM (GMT 0)
it not so much as how far away the clinic is. it not knowing what to expect and how long the treatment will take. i have been reading just every thing on all type of treatment .treatment and every other medical service waiting time in canada pretty much sucks. just waiting for the phone to ring.
thanks
dee in b.c.
Posted 2/2/2009 10:01 PM (GMT 0)
Hi waterloo,

Without more info about your particular situation it is difficult to comment, but I gather that the PSA went up rather quickly after RRP. I had the RRP and my PSA went up sometime after that (see my signature). I decided to opt for radiation when the PSA increased to .1. Had 33 treatments (66 Grays) of EBRT with few side effects. I'm now about 6 weeks post radiation and feeling good. My PSA is down to .05 and hopefully will go down further in 6 month. I had my treatment at the Memorial Hospital in Surrey, British Columbia. There is also a new treatment center in Abbotsford, B.C., which is supposed to be very good. If we knew a bit more about your history we could probably be of more and better help.
Good luck to you in the years to come.

Magaboob
Posted 2/2/2009 10:16 PM (GMT 0)
Waterloo-
If you click on "Control Panel" and then click on "Edit Profile" you will be able to create a signature like the ones seen above. The signatures help other members to provide the most accurate and relevant information. If you need help, let me know!

Also, the individual treatments were scheduled for an hour and the last week or two they went down to 30 minutes. However, my dad did say they were always running late, but I am sure this varies between treatment centers.
Posted 2/3/2009 12:30 AM (GMT 0)
I had 37 radiation treatments in the fall of 2007, for myself the hospital was only 5 miles away so it wasn't a problem. Each day I went for treatments  the total time I was there was about 30 minutes, unless they were running behind and that only happened a few times.

There were other people having treatments there that lived to far away to commute every day so they stayed at local hotels.

My treatments were monday thru friday,  never  on the weekends.

The treatments for myself really had no side effects, I was never tired and continued to  do everything I done before treatments. The only side effect I had was a slight discomfort in the rectum, but they gave me suppositories and it took care of it.

Wish the best of luck to you

mike

Posted 2/3/2009 1:52 AM (GMT 0)
again thanks for all the info
dee in b.c.
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply