@jaygk By “mostly uneventful” I mean that I only had 1 day of adverse side-effects during treatments. On the 3rd day of treatment, I had urinary difficult issues. My RO told me that with some men there’s an inflammatory response to the radiation, and if that inflammation is near the urethra can cause the issues that I was experiencing. He recommended that I take 2 Tamsulosin/day for the remainder of the treatments. Everything cleared up by the next day; I haven’t had any issues since. My “recovery” from the radiation treatments was uneventful.

If being “put in the gantry” you mean placed on the treatment table in the radiation room, the answer is yes.

@jaygk My prep each time of full bladder/empty rectum was easy to repeat each day. The bladder being “full” is relative. For me, that was just 18oz of water to drink just 30 minutes prior to each fraction. So, I emptied my bladder 45 minutes prior to treatment time, started the 40 minute drive to the radiation center, 10 minutes into the drive drank 18oz of water, arrived at the treatment center 30 minutes later, and had the treatments. Worked every time; never had a problem.

The bowels being “empty” didn’t mean it had to be clean like it is for a transrectal biopsy; no need for an enema. What my radiation oncologist told me was what they really mean is nothing in the lower intestine, material or gas, that might move during the radiation treatment and cause the prostate to move. So, no gassy foods that might cause issues; so at the same time as emptying the bladder 45 minutes prior to treatment (mentioned in #1 above), I would also empty bowels. Worked every time; never had a problem.

In the weeks leading up to my radiation treatments, I practiced every day. By the time of my first treatment, I had the full bladder/empty bowel routine down to a ritual.

@jaygk I never had to wear a catheter.

I never had ED. There are data showing that the risk of late ED can be minimized by avoiding radiation hitting the penile bulb.

Since they radiate the entire prostate, being bilateral isn’t significant. However, depending on where the lesions are in your prostate, (based on the FLAME protocol) a boosted radiation dose can be administered where it’s needed, and less where it might not be needed. (My oldest brother recently had 28 IMRT sessions using the FLAME protocol, where at each session, three different Grays of radiation were administered, more Grays to areas of concern, thereby minimizing certain risks near areas of less concern.)