HealingWell
Search Close Search
☰

Radiotherapy session from a patient's point of view

Support Forums
>
Prostate Cancer
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply
❬ ❬ Previous Thread |Next Thread ❭ ❭
Posted 10/13/2013 8:22 PM (GMT 0)
This is a video I made of one of my 1.8Gy radiotherapy sessions with a wide-angle-lens equipped iPhone in my shirt pocket. about 12 minutes long, this video is the whole session, from walking in to walking out.

I'll be the first to say it isn't tremendously dynamic visually, but you can get an idea of what it's like to lay in a room by yourself with a truly ferocious x-ray machine pointed at your personal parts. This daily treatment delivers roughly the tissue energy density of 2750 chest x-rays per 1.9 Gy session. There are other videos of the Varian Trilogy in operation, professionally produced and all that, but this one is just a very personal recording of the gritty daily experience of radiotherapy.

It's a little subtle, but there is an interesting scattering of white noise specs during the actual treatment delivery (which is only about two minutes long). The iPhone was apparently being hammered by stray x-rays, or maybe electronic interference from the high-power linac that generates the x-rays. Kind of cool if you're into these things.

Perhaps it may be of interest to anyone considering radiation therapy, and how quick it really is if you have access to a RapidArc system.

youtu.be/AMEEBZDQSNo
Posted 10/13/2013 9:24 PM (GMT 0)
thanks for posting, interesting comparing to my pod and my conformal 3d.
Posted 10/13/2013 10:11 PM (GMT 0)
Enjoyed the movie! Very similar to mine, except I also had X-ray alignment of the fiducials throughout the treatment, which I could watch on a video monitor, and the arc was broken up into 4 quarter arcs. I also had a leg mold rather than the block. Thanks for producing that - I'll show it to guys who ask what the treatment is like. It might help alleviate their fear.
Posted 10/14/2013 3:56 PM (GMT 0)
Oh, wow, did that ever bring back memories of my IMRT treatments in spring-summer of last year! (IMRT treatments are virtually identical to what's in the video).

Yes, it goes exactly like Redwing57 has it in this video. All the subtle touches are there, too, such as mentioning the table jerking and moving slightly beneath oneself, as the techs were making final adjustments. What really brought it back for me, though, not that I had actually forgotten it, was just how patient one had to be while laying on the table, waiting patiently, not moving at all, even a little, while final adjustments were being made. It even made me remember that I used to hold my breath while the machine was making its two passes around me, just to make sure my abdominal movements were minimized!

The only thing about the video that struck me as pretty different from my own RT experience, was just how casually Redwing57 seemed to be walking out of the vault at the end of the video, after getting down from the table. I'm afraid in my own experience I would have been running hard for the men's room down the hall, after having held a (sometimes really) full bladder during the treatment!

However, for those of you who have never had RT, that's exactly what it's like. This video would be a great addition to the forum resources available to people trying to make the decision to take RT. Mods, could it be added to them?

Great job, Redwing57!
Posted 10/14/2013 4:28 PM (GMT 0)
Thanks! I posted it because I would have been interested in such a thing before my treatments.  Hopefully, it's part of paying it forward.

During the first session, the techs told me what was happening at each step.  I just kept a sort of slow shallow chest breathing, minimizing movement of my diaphragm.  (As a trombonist, I've spent a lifetime being extra aware of breathing.)

Head games...

There's this moment of suspense after all the adjustments are done, and right before the treatment is delivered.  I sometimes had a brief fantasy of jumping off the table and running out of the room at that moment.  Never did, of course, but I thought about it! :P

Here's another thought I pondered... if those x-rays were in a visible wavelength, how bright would the beam be?  Maybe some physicist has considered it but I've never found anything like that.

Obviously there's just too much time for one's mind to wander during these sessions.  My wife says, "It must be hard to live in your head."; she has no idea.

Posted 10/14/2013 10:19 PM (GMT 0)
Seems like old times. Even down to the same Varian machine. The only difference for me was I had really nice translucent ceiling panels with life-sized back-lit photos on them that made it look like you were lying under a blossoming cherry tree. Which, now that I think about it, could either be relaxing or it could make you think you were lying on the mall in Washington D.C. with your pants down.
Posted 10/14/2013 10:35 PM (GMT 0)
Redwing, thanks for the video. I start tomorrow, looks like the same type of machine. Seems to be a few differences such as I have to undress from the waist down and put on a robe, also i have a mold that goes from the knees to the waist to lock me down to the couch.
Kind of wish I could just walk in and drop my draws and be done with it, it would be a lot faster.
Posted 6/16/2015 11:34 PM (GMT 0)
I have severe arthritis in both knees and shoulders. Worries me about being able to lie still and on my back for any extended period. Anyone else with this issue? Thanks for all the input!
Posted 6/16/2015 11:50 PM (GMT 0)
You're replying to a very old thread.

For most RT, you're on the table for 10-15 minutes at most and they'll send in people to help you lie down and get up.
Posted 6/18/2018 7:40 PM (GMT 0)
Thanks to RedWing for this great video. I suspect IMRT or SBRT is in my immediate future, but I had no idea just what the process involves, so this has been most helpful.

I made it through a recent 3T-MRI for 85-minutes, and the techs both told me that the resulting images were some of the best they had ever seen in terms of clarity, so if I can stay motionless like that for 85-minutes, I'm confident I'll be able to do it for 10-15 minutes. And lets be clear, if not (i.e., if you move a lot), I suspect you're risking exposure to some rather vital non-target areas, right? Which can't be a 'good' thing. wink
Posted 6/18/2018 9:13 PM (GMT 0)

Balladeer said...
Thanks to RedWing for this great video. I suspect IMRT or SBRT is in my immediate future, but I had no idea just what the process involves, so this has been most helpful.

I made it through a recent 3T-MRI for 85-minutes, and the techs both told me that the resulting images were some of the best they had ever seen in terms of clarity, so if I can stay motionless like that for 85-minutes, I'm confident I'll be able to do it for 10-15 minutes. And lets be clear, if not (i.e., if you move a lot), I suspect you're risking exposure to some rather vital non-target areas, right? Which can't be a 'good' thing. wink


With SBRT (in my case it was CyberKnife), if you move 'too much', the machine will stop (thanks to the tracking of the fiducials). I don't know if that's true for up-to-date IMRT machines.
Posted 6/18/2018 10:05 PM (GMT 0)

Balladeer said...
Thanks to RedWing for this great video. I suspect IMRT or SBRT is in my immediate future, but I had no idea just what the process involves, so this has been most helpful.

I made it through a recent 3T-MRI for 85-minutes, and the techs both told me that the resulting images were some of the best they had ever seen in terms of clarity, so if I can stay motionless like that for 85-minutes, I'm confident I'll be able to do it for 10-15 minutes. And lets be clear, if not (i.e., if you move a lot), I suspect you're risking exposure to some rather vital non-target areas, right? Which can't be a 'good' thing. wink


I’m on #22 of #28 of IGIMRT. The mold they made for my legs stops most movement, but of course if you want to move you can. You are monitored by video the whole time. I’ll ask tomorrow about if the machine stops on it’s own. I would imagine some movement becomes more serious as the hypo fractions get larger like SBRT. My only problem has been controlling the urge to scratch an itch for 10 minutes. Rapid Arc is well rapid.
Posted 6/19/2018 5:35 AM (GMT 0)
As Sr Sailor said, with SBRT, the machine tracks you throughout the delivery of each of the 5 treatments.This is called INTRA-fractional tracking. If you move, or more importantly, if your organs move, the machine stops. It then realigns with the fiducials and continues. This is critical with SBRT because even a small miss can have bad results.

With IMRT, the doses are MUCH smaller during each treatment, so a little miss here and there evens out in the long run. It uses INTER-fractional tracking of the fiducials. It aligns at the start of each treatment only using a cone beam CT (just as SBRT does).

Both start you off with a rough placement of the bench using some little tattoos that you will get when you're having your planning CT scan.
Posted 6/19/2018 12:28 PM (GMT 0)
Thanks for the video. My RapidArc Tx was slightly different... I entered the vault from the left side of the machine and the lasers were red not green. They used a leg form not foot straps. Most notably the CT imaging was a continuous 360 degrees, rather than front and side images. Also too, the delivery pass was one full 360 degree rotation, not one 180 degree pass followed by a reverse pass.

I suppose as my Tx was just this past fall that these were improvements to the RapidArc system. But the sounds and sequence of events were identical. For my final week the techs had decorated the vault with ghosts and skeletons for Halloween. Of course there were a couple other things that happened during my treatment, such as a total solar eclipse as well as the largest hurricane to ever hit the state of Florida. It seems mother nature did her best to make things difficult.

Speaking of which... several others above have mentioned Cyberknife, a treatment for which I was not eligible due to adverse pathology. And as I had said in another thread, proton beam was not covered by insurance and HDR was essentially unheard of at the time. So my choices were few. Active surveillance was never even mentioned... in fact the word 'cancer' was never mentioned until just two years ago. My final biopsy was June 30th and I got the news by phone on the fifth of July, which was the first mention of cancer.

There won't be any celebrating for this anniversary.
Posted 6/19/2018 8:35 PM (GMT 0)
Wow are you trying to do scare people or what ......it really doesn’t look that bad ....really the vault ...it looked like a pleasant room ....ferocious machine ...really ...were you being sarcastic I hope ..I was thinking about radiation combo with brachytherapy

Post Edited (Stan1961) : 6/19/2018 2:39:50 PM (GMT-6)

Posted 6/19/2018 10:18 PM (GMT 0)
I asked the techs about the Trilogy Rapid Arc machine stopping in IGIMRT mode during movement. She told me no automatic stop but they have the big red button that stops it if they see movement on video or the real time monitor. I asked her how often she has had to stop the treatment because the patient moves. She laughed and said you won't believe how many people try to take selfies during treatment.
Posted 6/19/2018 10:38 PM (GMT 0)
Does it show you running to the bathroom to pee as soon as the session ends?
Posted 6/21/2018 12:24 PM (GMT 0)
Just want to know if anyone got radiation colitis from having radiation to the prostate thanks
Posted 6/21/2018 1:46 PM (GMT 0)

Stan1961 said...
Just want to know if anyone got radiation colitis from having radiation to the prostate thanks


Yes, I had bowel issues that began the first week of radiation and persisted throughout. My RO recommended continuing the dietary restrictions for a month afterwards. Finally I was allowed a colonoscopy after six months and was diagnosed with radiation colitis. Several others here experienced radiation proctitis, which is more common.

My GI doc said this should improve with time, but I still must be very careful what I eat. And there are days I have 3 or 4 BM's per day. I can never trust a fart, for I don't know if it will be solid, liquid or just gas.

Admittedly it is much better now than it was eight months ago. In the big picture, it is not a serious problem, only an inconvenience. The hard part is people don't know... actually, most don't know anything. "You don't know until you've actually been there yourself".

If there's anything you'd like to discuss personally, just click on the envelope icon at the left to email me. Otherwise maybe start a new thread on the main page. It would be an interesting topic of discussion.
Posted 6/21/2018 5:00 PM (GMT 0)
The initial thread is from 2013!!! Sure things have changed since then in the RT world!! This is like looking at computers in the 80's when they were the size of a room! yeah
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply