4-6 WEEKS AFTER OP

NORTH ARGENTINA

McCAW HONDURAS

COPAN MAYAN RUINS HONDURAS

LAKE SOUTHERN CHILE 

COPAN RUINS

COPAN

By now I was managing the only real side effect (SE) pretty well and managing to get up once a night (occasionally twice) with no other noticeable effect .
Far better than I'd imagined😆
I've known all along though,through my reading and research,that the radiation effect would be unlikely to be a big factor for the 1st month or so,and would probably click in in month 3 or 4 before hopefully beginning to subside.
I was scheduled to see my urologist and oncologist on 13th December,for the 1st time since my procedure.
The idea was to have a scan beforehand so we could see where the 62 pellets that had been planted were ,and to check that no migration had occurred to bladder/urethra etc.
Apparently one or two occasionally do ,but apparently don't present too big a problem due to the limited range of these rice size titanium encased palladium capsules (a few mm).
The half life of the palladium version (60 days) is longer than that of the alternative iodine version and designed to give off less radiation for a longer period.
Another interesting aspect of brachytherapy is the fact that it lands up delivering around double the dose of radiation as that of external beam radiation therapy directly to the affected organ.
Because it is placed directly inside the affected organ,IT generally doesn't affect the other healthy tissue and organs much in close proximity (i.e rectum/bladder/urethra/testicles).

Normally one's 1st PSA test would be after around 6 months or so ,as it apparently takes a while to begin killing these "bad boy" cells.However I decided to have a test before my consultations,to see whether there had been any substantial decline in my PSA,which had last clocked in at a high 10,3 (pre-op).

I wasn't really expecting any fireworks at this early stage and would've been happy with a reading of say 7/8/9 even.
I was pretty "bucked"when I picked up my reading (which had been forwarded to my urologist) to see that it'd dropped appreciably to 3,66!
Wow......something seemed to be working!
I saw my urologist 1st and the consultation lasted no more than 10 minutes (mainly to thank him for what appeared to be a job well done) as I had nothing but "good" news at this point and all seemed to be going pretty great at this stage.He was also surprised at this appreciable,early PSA reduction.

Then straight off to the CT SCAN people,who had me lined up for an MRI (I was virtually in the "can" already) before I raised the fact that I couldn't understand the reason for a full MRI when we were really only interested in seeing the capsules in my prostate.
At the last second,before I was about to enter the capsule, the technician agreed to check my query out ,only to discover that a Mr. LEATH (my name's HEATH) was supposed to undergo the %$#@ing MRI,not me.
PHEW!!!A CLOSE CALL (I hate MRI's)

30 minutes later I was with my oncologist who ran through the placement of the beads indicated on the MRI,and seemed very happy with the result.
A few quick questions on any SE's that I might be experiencing and,15 minutes later,I was on my way home.

WASHED AWAY ROAD ANDES