IGRT Treatment Log

Hello all, I thought I'd do a sort of radiation log for my husband's IGRT, for those of you who might be considering this treatment. I'll try to update once a week with any side effects, etc.

On April 23, John had his gold markers installed. We were told he'd be there 2.5 hours. He was in and out in 50 minutes, including anesthesia. This was much better than the biopsy. Only side effect was a little blood in his urine and ejaculation, but that was a one time deal. He went to work the next day and felt fine.

On April 29, he had a CT scan, they made the mold for the IGRT and did little tattoos on each hip and in the center to line him up for radiation. The whole appointment was a non-event and took only an hour.

May 4 they did a simulation for the real deal, which started yesterday. Yesterday the RT said he needed to drink a little more water for today as his bladder was a little too close. He's ready for round 2 today. He feels good and extremely optimistic.

Sounds like he's off to a good start.

The water thing takes a couple of days to get the timing right.

Hang in there - it will all be just a bad memory before you know it.

Andrew

I'm happy to read your reports. My husband has had all the gold markers, tattoos, and a planning meeting, but they delayed the actual radiation because of appointment timing issues. He begins in less than a month.

(The offered him 4 p.m. in downtown Boston for the month of May, and it just wasn't workable.)

He's on hormones so the docs were not concerned about a delay.

My husband is going on the way home from work - it's only 1.5 miles from there. He starts work at 5:30 am, so his appointment is at 2:50. He still beats me home! Thanks for all the comments. Any other input is appreciated!

My husband is one-third of the way done. The second week he had some trouble urinating, so the doctor put him on Flomax. That seemed to help. Last week he had some burning when urinating. The doctor told him to take two Aleve a day, one in the morning and one at night. That mostly clears up the issue. He's a little tired, but is dealing with it. However, he's under a lot of stress right now - issues with his parents - and those two issues crop right back up. Do you guys think stress aggravates these issues? I'm trying to keep him calm, but his mom, who's always been high maintenance, is at a new level of high maintenance. On the whole though, it's so far, so good.

Andrew, thanks for the suggestions. We've been walking every day, almost 4 miles and he's been working out. Hasn't helped that we had to put our much-loved 15 year old dog to sleep 2 weeks ago.

The stress is related to our son's wedding in NC in October. We live in NJ, the in-laws live in upstate NY. My father-in-law has Alzheimers. He gets very disoriented, has had a few mini-strokes and is generally very confused. She wants to go to the wedding. What that means is that my husband has to drive up to get them 3 hours away on a Wednesday after work. We'll fly to NC on Thursday, wedding is on Saturday, fly home Sunday and then 6 more round trip hours to take them home. The bride had 110 guests, our son has 6, including us, we have no other relatives that are attending the wedding. There will be no one else there to help out with them. To top it off, my husband is best man and wants to do everything right. Our alternative is to fly our son and his fiance up for a weekend this summer so they can spend time with him and his future wife. She's stubborn. At this point I'm ready to call her and tell her that, "No, you're not going."

She knows he has PC and is undergoing radiation. At first she cried when she heard. Now her comment is, "I don't know why you're having radiation, prostate cancer sometimes goes away on its own." Sorry for the rambling, but it's such a touchy subject.