End of radiotherapy week three and I am now well into the time window when the dreaded side effects should start showing themselves.
Ideally, the prostate should be situated in an isolated part of the body, in the bum cheek perhaps; such that radiotherapy would only bugger a bit of your bum while destroying the cancer. Instead evolution (or your creator of choice if you are a creationist) has placed the prostate in close proximity to both the bladder and the bowel; so radiotherapy will inevitably blast both these organs, with varying results.
When discussing treatment options, my one pen urology consultant was keen to list the many and varied side effects I might experience should I choose radiotherapy. I was handed lists detailing all the things that could go wrong. Grave looks were exchanged. Heads were shaken. Having exhausted the catalogue of potential horrors, he closed his argument for avoiding radiotherapy with a final flourish:
“There is a 20% chance you could be incontinent <pause> for life!”
Well, thanks for that,
So, here we are into week 3, and each day I am expecting some sign that bad things are happening. Finally, on Monday, an indication that things weren’t right.
My nightly pee routine involves one or two loo visits, a fairly normal reaction to old age and a cancerous prostate. Not too disruptive and I can usually settle down quickly and resume sleep. But I noticed the frequency increasing and on Monday I was awakened by the need to pee every two hours. By 0400 I was wide awake and worrying that this was a sign of radiation cystitis, not an uncommon outcome of radiotherapy.
On Tuesday I told the radiologist of my concerns.
“Have you been drinking plenty of water, as recommended?” he asked.
“Oh yes, litres per day” I replied proudly.
“Try not drinking after 1900” he suggested.
“Oh.”
So I did as he suggested, and the next night I reverted to my normal two pee pit stops.
Reset to Defcon 5 and await developments.
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