Near the end of radiation:

August 29th, 1997
geoff fernald


4 more days of rad. after a 3 day weekend of rest.

This is friday. I feel fairly tired in my pelvis, just lolling around on the living room floor until I decided to write this note.

Not sleeping too well; legs seem to feel slight surface pains more intensly than usual and after an hour of trying to sleep they get 'jumpy'. I have developed the coping pattern of going into the living room and sleeping in a sleeping bag. I can vibrate my legs and body there without bothering Jane and that seems to relieve the jumpy ness and eventually I get to sleep, 2:30 in the morning.

Skin feels constantly dry, especially to my finger tips. If I oil my hands the touch feels more normal.

My leg sinews also seem tighter than usual. Weekends seem the slowest with fair recovery monday.

The Doc. says it will take about a month to recover from these tiredness side effects.

They reduced the opening in the beam especially at the top (seminal vesicles) and that seems to have reduced the rate of rise of tiredness. This week I reached a tired level that was moderate, went out to dinner with friends wednesday and thursday without too much tiredness. More tonight.


I am told that it can take up to 2 years median time for my body to determine whether there will be a recurrance. If after that no rise in PSA is detected then there is a good probability I am in the 80% who are free of recurrance catagory. A long time to wait. Further talks indicate you know a lot after one year.

I think I will do interesting things in those two years so as to not miss opportunities. Any ideas?


Spirits are generally good though usually one of the weekend nights I feel a letdown of my stiff upper lip attitude and feel sad. Might be some of that tonight. Not bad so far, just some.

 

geoff fernald August 31, 1997