This morning, I got my first tattoos as part of the mapping process.
The whole thing went quite smoothly. My appointment was at 10 a.m., so I started downing a liter of water around 9 a.m. to make sure that my bladder was full. I may have consumed it a little slower than I should have, because when I was on the table, the technician said my bladder wasn’t quite full enough so we waited a few minutes to let my kidneys process my intake.
The cool temperature in the room accelerated my desire to run to the toilet to let all the water out, but I was able to hold on until the scan and tattooing were completed. But not by much.
The actual zapping will begin on Thursday, 7 July 2022 and go for seven weeks, which should put the end on 24 August if I counted days correctly while waiting. That means I have a few weeks to play before being tied to the zapping schedule.
Be well!
The photo is somewhere in central Kansas as storms were brewing. I didn’t see Dorothy or Toto. 🙂
Dan's Journey through Prostate Cancer 
Good luck Dan. You’ll do fine. Treatment will be over before you know it.
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Thanks, Ken!
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I can relate to what you are saying. They asked me if I wanted to pee a bit to relieve the pressure and I said that once I start there would be no holding back and my bladder would be empty. So I suffered through a few dribbles that they had to deal with.
Gary
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Gary I’m planning to use a penile clamp briefly, that should work? The alternative is pretty ghastly.
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Sounds like your well on your way to recovery. Looks like your handling the SE of ADT well? I think you got this!!
Charles
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Best of luck to you, Dan. You’ve got a bunch of people out here rooting for this course of treatment to knock this thing out once and for all. I want to be reading a blog from you about fishing or bocce or some such when we’re both old, old men!
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J.C. I wish that somehow a group consisting of Prostate patients could be compiled so that they could, if they wished, share in summary for like Dan has done what their experience of PCa has been.
We are always writing in the present tense and guessing / hoping / looking for more knowledge of what our futures might be.
It would be great to hear from guys (or their families) how those who were starting their journey of recurrence and thus starting the use of hormone therapy and radiation therapy 10 years before us, and to learn how they fared.
To ask them “was it worth it?” …
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Hi Peter. I couldn’t agree more about being able to tap into the long-term experiences of others who have been down this road ahead of us. It’s one of the reasons I’ve kept my blog going as long as I have—to be a resource for others. But we also need to remember that treatment options and methods today may be better than those 10 years ago, and there may be better outcomes as a result. We’d have to take their experience with a grain of salt based on that. That’s one of the problems with retroactive studies—they’re often based on treatment options available 7-15 years earlier. Just a consideration.
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Peter- I believe that if we’re getting commentary from people who are still around after starting therapy 10 years ago, that’s a good indication that it “was…worth it..”
I’ve read many blogs since I became detectable again, and Dan’s stands out as one of the best if not THE best for its rich mix of information, candor, and thoughtfulness. I’d love to see more comments -here- from people in similar situations, such that this becomes a clearinghouse for frank and factual discussions among this fraternity that no one wants to join.
I was diagnosed at 51 after my PSA jumped from 3.8 to 4.2 in a year. Nothing felt during the DRE, but I was referred for a biopsy that came back positive with 25% of the cores 3+4. That’s what it was staged at after surgery with the only adverse pathology being several margins of BNI. Undetectable for four years, then barely, then undetectable again, and now I’m halfway to recurrence with a PSADT of less than a year. No ED, 99.9% dry (a hard run or too much bubbly being my nemeses), so I’m lucky in that respect, but unlucky in the larger arena.
I’m following Dan’s story very carefully, and though all cases are different, can’t help but see future me in him. So selfishness, along with basic human decency, wants me to see him thrive.
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J.C.
Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Your kind comments blew me away and are truly humbling. Thank you so much!
I’ll have to admit that there have been times where I questioned the value in continuing to report on my story, and this just reinforces my decision to keep on going.
Thanks again!
Dan
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