Tuesday, July 05, 2016

A medical update

When my radiotherapy treatment started, I set certain deadlines to see me through. Getting to the end of the first complete week was one because then I knew I had Saturday and Sunday to recover and I would not have to get up early and travel to Elche for two days.

Today, I reached my second deadline which was the 14th day of treatment which means I am now half way through. By the weekend, I will only have two full weeks left of radiotherapy - that will be another milestone. Then I will be down to one week and finally my last treatment should be on the Monday following.

Having Pamela with me on Tuesdays and Thursdays helps to break the week up. When she had radiotherapy for breast cancer, I was at work and so it was not possible for me to accompany her. Fortunately, one of our neighbours went with her a few times which must have helped in the same way.

Last week, a few of the people I had met at IMED were on their last day of treatment and you could tell they were delighted to have finished the course. Certainly, they will have follow up consultations to check their progress but they are far less frequent - maybe once every three months. The hope for those of us with prostate cancer is that our PSA level will gradually drop and that by the end of a year or so will be at a normal level. A normal PSA level is a good sign that the treatment has been successful. There may be further tests as well including MRI scans and possibly a biopsy.

With regards to the side effects: as I said, the bathroom has become a frequent place I visit which is OK during the day but at night, when I would rather be asleep, it is a nuisance but no more than that. The best description I can give is "little and often".

2 comments:

Bill said...

I just read this article and this has prompted me to read back through your earlier entries on the same topic. I do hope the treatment continues to go well and that you will recover quickly.

Keith Willliamson said...

Thank you Bill. It is a bit of a pain having to travel each day to the hospital for ten minutes of treatment but what else can you do? I can cope with the frequent trips to the bathroom and have now got into a routine of getting back to sleep quickly during the night.

I am encouraged by the fact that the urologist described them as small tumours that are well contained in the prostate and the doctor at IMED says there is more than 90% chance of success with the treatment.