Hi Mike
Well done on getting through five rounds of chemo. I managed to finish 6 rounds but after that I thought I was recovering but also caught an infection. Like you I ended up back in hospital for a week to get my temperature down. It is just random chance that I didn’t get the infection during chemo like you. But I guess the chemo doing it’s thing can leave the body open to infection.
I finished RT 4 weeks ago. It was a slog to get through it all and it does get tiring. You have to get into a routine with drinking water to have your bladder full. Also they will give you a sheet with foods to avoid. The process itself is painless and over in a few minutes. I’m still very tired but I am working from home and yesterday I went for my first very slow run. I’m hoping the fatigue improves but it is taking longer than I thought it would. Some people seem to recover more quickly so you won’t know till you do it.
On top of that am still on 3 monthly Decapeptyl injections plus daily Erleada (Apalutamide) tablets. They are probably not helping with general fatigue. I have monthly blood test reviews with the clinic and next week have a bone scan which will be followed by a CT scan to check everything. PSA is <0.03 which it has been since going on ADT back in October.
The way I see it is that I’ve now got no cancer (assuming scans come up negative) but I do have an impact from all the treatments. For example I have zero sex life which sometimes gets me down. I’ll also be a lot happier once the post RT fatigue wears off. But I don’t expect to be back on the merry go round for at least 3 years when there is a decision point about coming off ADT. If something happens before that I’ll deal with it but it’s not something I worry about.
Hope that’s helpful and that the next stage of treatment all goes well for you!