@matthewdore I went to a local hospital which is an affiliate of one of the big Boston hospitals. It was a 20 minute drive, so relatively convenient.

It was the RO who thought VMAT (a form of IMRT) would be best and that I did not need ADT (contrary to what my urologist and Decipher recommended). Looking at proton, I learned that the outcomes and QOL issues were very similar between photon and proton, so I decided to stay local. I’ve interacted with three different ROs at this hospital all of whom have been trained and taught at Ivy league schools (UPenn, Harvard, & Brown), so I felt that I was in good hands.

It’s now approaching three years since my treatment and things are going well. I did have two brief “blood in the water” sessions in the last two years, but they both cleared up quickly without any sort of intervention. I did have a colonoscopy last year that showed evidence of radiation proctitis, but no bleeding was observed. The ED I had before treatment got worse after undergoing radiation, but the combination of Trimix and a VED allows me to still be sexually active.

My latest PSA number came in at 0.18 which is the lowest it has been since this adventure started. I believe that I received excellent treatment and am pleased with the outcome.

@matthewdore
VMAT Uses a 3-D treatment that circles around your body to treat the prostate without Going into other areas. IMRT doesn’t do that.

This requires much more complex programming to do the treatment.