SRT... Here I Come!!

After consulting with three radiation oncologists about my situation... one in a major city 200 miles away where I had surgery nearly 30 months ago, one in my local area highly recommended by three sources (including the radiation doc in the major city) who is considered "out of network" by my insurance company, and one local doc considered "in-network," I decided to go in-network primary due to convenience and MUCH less cost. After meeting with the third doctor she seems to know the disease well, has experience with the process, and is very confident the treatment will work. I also was amused when this high-energy and "motherly" Korean woman told me, in her Korean accent, to "assume the position" for the DRE (which was negative!!).

Anyway... I go in on Tuesday for the set-up and probably will start my first of seven weeks of treatment soon after. I was advised to have a Fleets enema and I will be have a catheter (oh boy... the memories!!) for the set-up. Can anyone let me know what else to expect that day beyond the things the doc told me?

Wish me luck...

You mention having a catheter for your set up
I hope you mean the catheter will be used to fill your bladder as having an empty bladder is not recommended. (If I understood it correctly a full bladder will push the bladder away from the prostate bed, while conversely a full bowel will get pushed towards the prostate bed.)
Though my doc also said that it is also a case of it being best to just have everything inside you in exactly the same position during set up and during treatment sessions, so that the machine will be accurate when it comes to hitting the target area and avoiding the healthy tissue.

Otherwise hope the RT goes well and you have as few side effects as possible.

Alf

?? i don't understand the catheter, or any other prep, also don't understand the need for a DRE, but maybe that's just my experience...

i got to the office, with no preparations at all. dude came over and gave me a liter of stuff, cooled down, and i drank it in the waiting room...the coolness of the solution, plus nerves, got me pretty shaky chilled by the end of the bottle....the solution fills your bladder, plus it has a chemical to make the bladder stand out more in the CT scan

the dude laid me down on the CT scan table.  and then they do two things to help with your positioning.  they make a rough foamy mold that holds your feet still, and prick you in 4 places (these make permanent dot "tatoos"). when they position you in all the next SRT procedures, they can put your feet in the molds, and line your tattos up with the laser scanners coming from the ceiling and walls, and they feel confident that you are in exactly the same orientation, time after time. 

you then go through a CT scan, and the rad doctors use that 3D information to set up the radiation machine to blast where the prostate used to be, and try to hit where the cancerous cells would be, and minimize damage to bladder and rectum.

absolutely no pain or discomfort, except full bladder, nerves, and a guy poking you real quick with a point, to make your tatoos.  you leave there thinking: what was i worrying about?? (oh, yeah, cancer....)

i don't like wishing you LUCK, but i'll join you in wishing/hoping that the doctors are able to knock it all down and you have many years of peaceful, low PSA's !

bob

 

I went for the set-up today. They used two catheters on me- one to the bladder, the other to the rectum. Both were used to inject dye so the bladder and rectum would show clearly on the pelvic CT. My radiation doc is using "tomo-therapy" which relies on a CT scan each time I am treated.

Anyway... I survived the experience and am tentatively scheduled to begin treatment on December 13.

Kark, look at a parallel thread, something about "Anyone SRT using VARIAN TRILOGY RAPIDARC", in that thread, a posting by Pogmo-something sounds very similar to what you are discribing, with the dual catheters..

bob

i guess my Gaelic is a little rusty; sometimes i try to decipher where the usernames come from (like vanity license plates) but yours shot right past me...

wishing you (and Kark) a fruitful RT series..keep us posted!

bob