It's going to be a long Spring...

 Well, it's been a whirlwind of tests, calls from doctors, visits, and planning.

I've had a bone scan (negative, to see if the cancer spread into my bones), and a CT-Scan to see if it spread in my body (again, negative).

They gave me 3 choices of what I could do.

1. Nothing. Hope for the best, and maybe have 10 years of good life.

2. Surgery to remove the prostate. This comes with many possible side-effects and after-effects which I wasn't happy with.

3. Radiation Therapy. 38 radiation treatments over 6+ weeks. The side-effects are way less than with surgery. It takes longer, and when I asked the doctor which plan he'd choose (after I had already made my decision), he said #3 for sure, which is what I decided to do.

So, I then asked, "I have a vacation(cruise) scheduled for the end of February, should I cancel now?", to which the doctor said absolutely not. With other things we have to do before radiation starts, and the backlog at the hospital, not to mention how extremely slowly prostate cancer spreads, we'll do the radiation therapy when I get back.

So, there's a few things I have to do in February, including a pre-op because they are going to insert 3 markers in/on my prostate for the radiation (more on this later), and a biodegradable sponge to move the prostate away from something else (missed what that was).

The markers are for the radiation machine, that has a small ct-scan built in, to note exactly where to shoot the radiation, so as to not hurt anything good in there.

The treatments will be 5 days a week, over a 6+ week period and work has already determined that I'd be fine working from home for those weeks. Have I mentioned, I have an outstanding boss? I'm very, very lucky.

Well... more as it comes. Keep those thoughts and prayers coming!
Thanks,

Dave