My RT is over - some numbers and thoughts

So guys and ladies. A week after my radiation therapy in Amsterdam finished I was thinking about a few related observations, details and numbers to crunch.

The obvious stat is that I had to go to the hospital 33 times for 66Gy or radiation. (Plus there were two visits beforehand: one to see the doc and another to get told about the system and have a CT scan.)

With doses from seven different directions each time that was as total of 231 blasts.

I also had two control x-rays on the first day and at 5 day intervals and then extra control x-rays towards the end when a variation was noted. I think that made a total of 18 x-rays.

Travelling for the RT thus involved 33 return journeys by public transport as follows:
-66 tram/streetcar journeys in The Hague.
-73 train journeys. 3 of the 66 journeys did not go according to the timetable due to signaling/track problems so I had to use 7 trains in addition to the basic 66, but otherwise all the trains except one ran on time. I also had a seat on every journey and was able to use the WC on every train except one
-51 Bus journeys in Amsterdam, It was only 51 not 66, as at the beginning I was able to walk from the station in Amsterdam to the hospital and back, then for a few days I was only able to walk one way and then I was too tired and had to take the bus both ways.

When I used the tram/train/bus combination it still involved walking about 1500 yards each day (from my apartment to the tram halt and back; from the tram to the train and back in The Hague; from the train to the bus station and back in Amsterdam, from the bus stop to the hospital and back.)
When I walked from the station to the hospital or vice versa it was about 1500 yards each way.

The total distance travelled was around 4500km (2800 miles) it was about 120km each day plus diversions

The total cost of tickets was about 460 euros (370 euros of which should be paid by the insurance company)

I drank about an extra 11 litres (or about 16 ½ pints)

I saw three different doctors, and lost count of the number of nurse/technicians who positioned me on the table. (One of them told me that there were about 120 staff in the department and that I probably saw about 20 of them. about one in five of the staff were male.)

My wife came with me just twice, once to see what happened and once to keep me company when she had a day off.

I read 64 free newspapers on the train (one day was a public holiday so there were no free papers at the station) I also glanced at about 200 old magazines in the hospital waiting areas. And met about 200 other cancer patients, but only a few PCa guys, as the hospital is a specialist cancer centre and treats everything all mixed in together. Seeing others with cancer, many of whom did not look well was on the one hand distressing but in a way strangely reassuring. There was no upside however to seeing a couple of young mums with no hair etc.

I started on 26th April and finished on 11th June and there was only one day when it rained on me, and that was the very last time I walked back to my apartment on the very last day, there was also one day when rain made the train wet.

Additional time-and-motion observations since the side effects hit are that having 4 BMs a day uses up about 20 minutes of the day and having to pee every 30 minutes or so uses up a further hour. I only had the tiniest of leaks towards the end and rather than end up with embarrassing damp patches on my clothing I used up 1 pad each day on the final 11 days.

I should get a life.

Alfred

Alf, it's good to see you are done with that, now you can return to a less traveled lifestyle, unless you have caught the wander bug.lol Wishing you the best in your upcoming testing.

you say you need to get a life: sounds to me like you did all this so you HAVE a life ...glad the process is over for ya, looks like i have today's treatment, then a full week next week, and THAT'S IT!!

looking forward to that time...

hoping you have success with your procedure

bob

 

Hi Alfred,

Congratulations on completing you SRT. I had the same number of sessions and Gys (33/66), but was bombarded from only 3 positions (now I feel cheated). Anyway, hope that the sessions were able to kill off your remaining bad cells.
All the best to you and may all your future PSA tests be zeros.

Magaboo

Alfred,
I'm glad your hectic travel is over. Now you can relax and hopefully watch your PSA go down to a low undetectable nadir. Good luck

Hope you get through the side effects, good read for others as to what one has to go through to get things accomplished, best to you.

Alf, you are a man after my own heart, with your post full of stats that only a man would sit around accumulating. I drive my wife nuts with stuff like that.

I think you take the cake for total distance and transportation logistics.

For my 39 treatments, drove a total of 507 miles, and based on 21 mpg average with my car, cost me about $ 58 USD in gas. The clinic had free parking, so no expense there.

Aside from the 7-position daily zaps, they took a min. of 2 snap x-rays each day, sometimes as much as 6 in a session due to alignment issues, so that is well over 78 to 100 x-rays in addition to the zaps.

Since mine were done the entire time while using a suprapubic catheter, there was no water volume to figure out.

I never had to delay any of my treatments, but the clinic was closed on American Thanksgiving day, which was the day before my last treatment.

All I know, is I am glad I am long past that, but still fighting daily fatigue from it, and still healing down below from the effects of the radiation.

I will be seeing my uro on Monday, and we are going to see what to do next in the gameplan.

Glad you are through yours, and most importantly, hope that it is effective in the long run.

David in SC

Alf,
You are man after my own heart. Like all the great thinkers of the world including: Copernicus, Brahmagupta, Tycho Brahe, et al., you not only took and recorded data but were willing to share it with us.
I'm sitting here with fresh coffee, eating a bagel with cream cheese, and dill and chives just cut from the garden. Your post made my morning even brighter. Thank you for sharing.
We are all richer for your efforts.
Jeff

Gas stats unavailable as final total unknown, production still ongoing.
Alf