Hey Steve, yeah, ain’t life a blast sometimes? I surmise from your results that you either had some small spread presurgically or other factors which precluded total eradication of the cancer by surgical means alone.
But you are in a better spot than if something went undetected for years and was able to metastasize to distant bones where you would have needed even more radiation (SBRT) than the 45 salvage sessions.
I had 25 and it was a lot for me, mostly because of the no gas/full bladder which is absolutely essential for successful treatment. Not only do you want to kill the cancer, but you don’t want to harm anything else along the way.
Every day after a session the tech would say “great job today!” And I would say , “But I just laid on the table!” They would then tell me that all the problems most men face after radiation (proctitis, bladder stricture, etc) come from improper prep: gas in the bowel or less than full bladder.
So you have to do that for over 45 days (DON’T cheat on weekends - you’ll pay for it on Monday) and that is gonna be the most difficult part of the treatment discipline-wise.
But you’ll do it and the time really flies once you are in it. You got this, Steve! Best
Phil