I do not know how typical my side effect experience is, but figure if I share it here it becomes part of our knowledge base.
My External Beam Radiation Therapy was done via an Intensity Modulated System. A movable metal table under a free moving projector head. The actuation was via a very impressive computer bank. The tech said it had 11 different x-ray machines that all fed into the projector. The focal head had many little metal sliding baffles that shaped the beam and modulated the intensity of the x-rays. The machine head proper went around the table in a 359* circle. The head could also change its angle of inclination along the tables long axis.
The radiation oncologist told me that the treatment area was a 3 - dimensional figure - 8 pattern that included the prostate bed and the interior pelvic lymph nodes. The tumour had 'kissed' my colon so the surgeons removed a quarter - sized chunk of that during the DVRP to see if the PCa had metastasized there so they may well have deliberately hit my colon, just in case.
I had radiation therapy to remove my tonsils in 1956. Some of the collateral damage from that did not appear until 2007 when the tonsils had regrown and I had to have them removed again. A friend who had radiation therapy for breast cancer 25 years ago tells me that she is still noticing side effect improvement today.
Yeah, 80 Gy in 40 fractions was a bunch, they cooked me righteously indeed. I hope that others don't have as hard a time as I have had with it, but just in case, you have my story and can make a note if you start to get little surprises a few years out. The colonoscopy that showed the gas blisters was routine, though I had been having the bowel issues for some time by then. Still do.
Inconvenient...sometimes, yes. Sometimes painful as well, but tolerable. If all that the treatments have done for me is to kick the can down the road, then I have more time to have more fun and continue to enjoy my life.
