Dear Friends,


Radiation treatment status for those who are thinking of me and helping my mind and soul. 15 treatments out of 37 are done. I'll be half way this friday. Blood test shows no real reduction in white or platelet count, though with the small beam size of 3D prostate radiation non-was expected. So immunity is fine.

No real side effects to date. Just some sun-burn like feeling where sun doesn't normally shine. Skin lotion, almond oil, aloe vera and a little smeared on vitamin E seems to keep that well behaved. I hear the hardest time is about 5 weeks so we'll see. Intermittant minor diarrhea. Can't tell if that's just my normal food sensitivity or what.


The doc sees me twice a week. I got to see the beam energy plots. They are much wider than the prostate. About 80% out to the pelvis inner periphery. They also have it about 5" high and shaped like the prostate and extending a cm along the urethra since they have seen spread there in some recent data. This is '3D conformal' radiation. They Shoot me at 6 angles. ~-50 degrees, 0, ~+50, and then on the other side the same. That is how they get conformal.

I think this is right: I get the equivalent of 20,000 xrays a day. 200 Rads or Grey. The machine is built by Varian (the 2300C) and has a 2cm wide minimum beam at 15 Mev. 98% efficient xray generation. They call it an accelerator.

I lie on a table where they laser align me using three dot-tatoos, one each side and one centerd on the prostate. They shoot me thru a special material (ceramic?) which has a bunch of .5cm approx. wide leaflets that are computer controlled to shape the field.

Each shot is about 6-9 seconds. I go every day, 5 days a week for 15 minutes. Still working a full day. Expect some tiredness later in treatment. Energy still fine.

The doc says they are not trying to mimic a prostatectomy. They plan to have wider coverage than that. They narrow down at the 5th week to exclude the seminal vesicles in the 6th/7th weeks. If a problem gets too bad they stop treatment for a week I am told.

The big difference here from surgery is surgery is all the bad stuff at the start and improvement thereafter. This is all the bad stuff later, up to a year later. The final effects of the rad. take a year to finish.

So radiation is very much a mind/heart game. I am doing pretty well with that not over focussing on the 'death ray' aspects; more a 'LIFE RAY'. Looking forward to 22-32 years of good going after this.

My adaptation to liking hugs and not caring about sex (testosterone suppressed) is such a new experience for me i am having a great time seeing the world differently.

So , glowingly yours,

or

lotion ahoy

or

let's engage our minds Fernald


love,
geoff fernald
August 5 1997