Step 2 Completed - Where to next

Just finished SRT this week, IMRT 38 treatments 68 Gy. I know many of my brothers here have had significant problems with RT, but for me luckily it was a piece of cake. Only side effects were right toward the end, sunburn irritation on butt and some fatigue. I have been on HT throughout treatments and PSA has been < .01. So far so good. I am scheduled to be on HT for one year. At first I was unhappy with the fact that I wouldn't know if SRT was successful for quite awhile because of the HT, but now I think that it is better for me. For me SRT is not likely to offer a cure. My doctors indicate less than 50%. MSK programs indicate that with my stats SRT will only have a 47% chance of holding of progression of PCa for more than six years. So if I can have the next 8 months thinking that I still may be cured, I'll gladly take it. This thing is a real pain in the a**, but I am going to enjoy the fall, winter and spring. I plan on retiring on April 1 of next year. I intend to live the good life for as long as I can. BB

 

Good for you!~ I know that must have been an ordeal to travel every day back and forth. So now it's ova! (New England lingo)

Have a beer on me, or better yet, a blueberry smoothie.

Congrats.

john

Fairwind, SRT started 16 months after surgery. BCF at one year with PSA really taking off. I can tell you that I was bummed. Since my tumor was organ contained, my PCa is very likely alr eaaedy systematic. I pulling out all the stops now and willtake this as far as I can. BB

BB,

Glad you are done with the SRT. Now just relax for a while.

BB.
Next step is take it easy for a while.

Watch out for some delay in the side effects kicking in after SRT. I was tired by the end of the sessions and my continence was throw off course by all the extra water drinking needed to have a full bladder and I had some itchy skin and about a month after RT lots of brown skin peeled off in various places. But the RT takes a while to do its stuff on the inside and the collateral damage to my gut only became really noticeable about 6 weeks after RT finished and has been at this annoying level regarding frequent BMs and excess farting for the last seven weeks or so. The tiredness is also annoying in a way now as it's unpredictable. One day is fine the next I can hardly do anything without it making me exhausted.

I did not have HT at the same time as RT so was lucky to be able to see the results of the SRT three months on when it gave me admission to the zero club.

Alf