So...

Yesterday, 08Feb24 was my first day of radiation for Stage 1 prostate cancer.  (Proton Beam Therapy, more on that at a later date.)

It's been a bit of a trek getting here.  Pretty anticlimactic.  Still exhausted from yesterday, and not so much for today's radiation.  Nothing to do with the treatment, just unloading all the suppressed anticipation now that it is really, well real.

The first intimation was 17Apr23, when my PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) came in slightly above normal range.  Not much to worry about, but the level change over the last few checkups hockey sticked.  Still only maybe a 10% change of something and even then not much chance it will need treatment in this lifetime.

Some more reviews but still seeming pretty innocuous.  A 3D MRI on 18Jul found a couple lesions.  Geesh, aka mass, aka tumor, aka so on and so forth. Beat the odds this time, and again there was only a 10% chance of it needing treatment.

On 11Aug24 a biopsy.  Even with the heavy bit of local anesthesia a number of the 17 samples hurt like the dickens.  It showed a Gleason score of 4 + 3.  The results were explained on 17Aug.  The score meant Intermediate Unfavorable.  Which I think means, there's some significant cancer which is aggressive enough to require treatment or close monitoring which in itself is invasive and damaging.

After that it's been a procedure here, a procedure there, more diagnostic tests, wash, rinse, and repeat.  More details later.  It's been enough thinking about it today, and I'm sure tedious for anyone stumbling across this.

Making the blog unindexed until I've told more people.