Set up - uneventful

First, turns out you don't need to drink water before the set up. I was told by the scheduling staff to come an hour before my appointment time, but ended up just sitting there waiting. When they took me in, they put me on the machine, lined me up using the laser beams and my tatoos and straped me down using the mold they made during the simulation. I have two parts to my treatment plan. First, they will radiate my pelvic area with 45 gray then just the prostate bed with additional 27 to make it 72. The first part involves 9 angles. They have to take pictures from every angle and compare it with the original scan and the plan. So, it took about 45 minutes. I dosed off a few times. Pretty boring. Everything lined up perfectly, so I am ready to go on Monday. Next week I will have four treatments. Wed is a maintenace day for my machine. I will lose two or three days to maintenance over the course of my treatments. They told me to call them an hour prior to appointed time to see if they are running pm time, then drink 16 oz of water. Pretty easy. The whole thing should take 15 min. So, overall - nothing to write home about .

Good luck Geebra. I'm interested in what you tell us during your IMRT, with my high Gleason EPE I'm preparing myself to that possibility in the furure. I hope all goes well for you. By the way, are you having any HT along with it?

Good thing I did not require this treatment. My wife would have gladly slipped the tech an extra $50 to "forget" the vocal cord protection.
Let's hope it works for you.
Jeff

geebra, they are wanting to do 70 grays with me if and when I do it. the only time i ever fell asleep with a test was years ago when a full body bone scan took an entire hour. they had to wake me up and stop the path, because they said my snoring was messing up the scan, lol.

david in sc

Good luck with your RT. Did your doc say anything about NOT taking any anti-oxident supplements during RT? I have read some studies that say to stop the supplements and others say they might actually help. I am half way thru my treatments and my RT doc didn't say anything about this. He did say to increase my protien intake to help with healing.

Thanks

         CS53 

Interestingly, my long term GP, my urologist/surgeon, and the radiaton oncologist that I have spoken to so far, all of them preach against supplements and vitamins. Feel they are unneeded, and in some cases, supplements can mess up the positive effects of required medications.

David in SC

John, I remember you telling me about the 32 oz. When I asked the rad. oncol. recently about that, he said nope, just half liter, which is 16.9 oz if I remember right. 32 oz would be a lot to hold, I admire your ability to do that for so many rounds of radiation.

david in sc

geebra, thats a long commute there for radiation. when i do start eventually, it will be about 15 min. drive each way at the most.

david

Greetings, Geebra.  Glad your set-up went well and you are ready for the treatments.  We'll look forward to great reports.  David

Ok. Had my first treatment yesterday. In and out in about 30min. The treatment itself is 15 min. Felt nothing during or after treatment. I suppose the doze needs to accumulate before you get side effects.