by Robert M. Traxler
After five months of drug treatment, testing, evaluating, probing and studying the long-awaited offensive is thankfully under way. Radiation will kill the cancer, hopefully all of it, but at least enough to set it back years.
The treatment team is made up of six folks, five medical professionals and me. We as patients need to understand our part in the process and help and appreciate those who are helping us. Every weekday for nine weeks the outstanding folks at the Metro Department of Radiation Oncology will kill the cancerous cells in and around the prostate.
The process is to arrive at the center, enter the treatment room, lie in a “cradle,” a mold made for each individual, and be absolutely still for the 15 to 30 minutes it takes to deliver one forty-third of the radiation needed to kill the cancer. All things said, the process is so far not bad, not bad at all, no pain or feeling of being treated. The folks who deliver the lifesaving treatment are friendly, kind and professional.
There is some noise as the large machine moves around you, killing the cancer from ever-changing angles. Radiation kills healthy cells as well as malignant ones so varying the direction limits the damage to cells and organs in the path of the radiation. Healthy cells will over time repair themselves, the cancerous cells will not.
Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) is an advanced mode of high-precision radiotherapy that uses computer-controlled linear accelerators to deliver a precise radiation doses to a malignant tumor or specific areas within the body. An interesting side note is it takes ten million volts of electricity to operate the linear accelerator. The process is long and side effects will develop, but given the fact the alternative is cutting five to fifteen years off the back end of my life, it is fine with me.
According to the National Cancer Institute, fatigue is the most common side effect of cancer treatment and is especially prevalent and long-lasting among those of us who are older, who have advanced-stage cancer or who receive more than one type of treatment. If left untreated, fatigue may lead to depression, which may affect your ability to stay on your treatment regimen.
The journey though cancer treatment has taught me a great deal about this disease. Cancer is an extremely complex subject and we need to understand that every cancer has many different types; prostate cancer has seven types, each need specialized treatment.
Well-meaning folks have told me that prostate cancer is slow-growing so don’t be concerned; some of the seven types are indeed slow growing and if above a set age, a man may die of other ailments before prostate cancer. My biopsy found three cancerous cell types, two are the most aggressive; untreated the cancer would have killed me sooner rather than later.
Radiation coupled with the chemotherapy type drugs will cause me to be fatigued, that is a slam-dunk fact, but we must never forget that a cancer patient is a member of the treatment team and we need to help ourselves. Diet, exercise and sleep management are items we can control and self-help is critical to a positive outcome.
The most important lesson learned is to find a doctor in whom you have trust and confidence. This trek has involved four doctors, and Dr. Julie Forstner is head and shoulders the best in a baker’s dozen ways. It is hard to put in words what the confidence we have in her and her treatment team’s abilities have meant.
Remember to always help yourself and be a member of your own treatment team. Recovery is hard and we must work as hard as the rest of our treatment team.
