delaying radiotherapy

Doing more than 3 months on HT before RT is fine, providing your PSA is still dropping, so make sure you are getting PSA tests every 3 months (or more often). Some oncologists want 6 months on HT first anyway. It's also good to do at least 18 months HT after the RT, which might mean lengthening the total HT a little in your case.

Obviously radio will have to be delayed while the hernia is dealt with - and HT might have to be prolonged to match - but that shouldn't stop the eventual treatment dealing with your PC. You might find yourself waiting longer to recover from the hormone side effects though.

Thanks to all for taking the time to reply.  I have now forwarded all the information to the radiotherapy team, and they are going to pass it along to the oncologist for her view. 

I am hoping, keeping fingers crossed, that she might be able to communicate the need for this surgery to be fast tracked, but if there is no slot, then they can't knit one can they.  

However, given that they were happy to give me the option of no radiotherapy at all, and just control it with injections, i find it hard to see how they'd think a few months delay might be seriously contraindicated.  The most frustrating thing is the inability to plan due to the uncertainty of it all.  We like our holidays, and already have one booked which we may or not be able to take.  We dare not book any more just in case.  

As far as the prostap goes, I am very fortunate I think to have had few bad symptoms from this.  I get the occasional hot flush, but come and go quickly.  Put a bit of weight on which will have to be addressed at some stage.  Get more emotional, which for a bloke isn't really a bad thing.  Otherwise, so far, nothing that concerns me.  

As a further update to this, my oncologist is most unhappy about this situation.  Having given the radiotherapy team the news that they don't need to put a plan in place just now, as I am waiting for the surgeon to give me a date for the hernia surgery.  Might not be until early next year.  I also asked them if it would be possible to delay it until late May, if it turned out that the treatment would impinge into a holiday I have booked in early May.  The radiotherapy team seemed cool about this 

As already mentioned the oncologist is most unhappy with it.  Her secretary called me, and although she didn't say this in so many words, I could tell from her voice that this is not at all satisfactory.  She said they were going to write to the surgeon to see if he could expedite the surgery.  My daughter is a GP secretary and she laughed when she heard this.  She said she hoped they would e-mail and not send an actual letter in the post!!  But at the same time, told me in no uncertain terms that the radiotherapy is more important than the holiday, that she and her husband are also booked for.  

I began my Prostap 3 in February this year.  The protocol of the hospital  I attend is that radiotherapy takes place 6-9 months after this.  Which is where I am now.  So following on from this, is anyone who has/had T3a NO MO disease gleason 4+5 (what they call high risk), PSA now 0.4, delayed their radiotherapy beyond the 9 months period.  The hernia situation can't be helped, we all know this.  The holiday of course can be cancelled if worse came to worse, even though it means losing some money.   My daughter is very adamant, my health comes first and there will always be another holiday.  I get that, of course I do, but I'd love to be able to find some good quality research that can show how risky it actually is to delay the radiotherapy.  My wife is getting pretty twitchy about delaying it for the hernia, but that has to be no matter what.  So far, I've had no luck.  If anyone can help with this also I'd be grateful.  

I would disagree that a holiday is a frivolity.  It's one of those activities that gives quality of life.  Quality of life at the age of 77 is important.  Long life without quality is no life.  However, I would agree that this particular holiday can be cancelled,  and if necessary will be, as per daughter's very vociferous instructions. And oncologist's concerns.  

The hernia is NOT an inconvenience.  This a large inguinal hernia from a failed repair done about 35 years ago.  It is painful, impinges again on quality of life, and is at risk of strangulation.  Therefore the repair is necessary before the radiotherapy, due to RT impairing on healing, not just now but for a considerable length of time.  Probably more time than I have.  Strangulated hernia is emergency surgery, infinitely more risky than planned surgery. 

Imagine a scenario in the future.  Hernia strangulates, emergency surgery under GA which is a bad thing for me due to other medical conditions.  Poor or no healing, risk of infection etc.  So where is the quality of life there. Or maybe loss of life. So die from the more likely  hernia risks rather than the possible prostate risks.   Sometimes one risk has to be played against another.  The oncologist is willing to take the risk of waiting for  the hernia surgery, whilst at the same time trying to expedite it.  She is clearly not, however, willing to have me take the risk of delaying further to take a holiday.  And for that I can't blame her, she is after all wanting the best outcome too.  

John,

At 77, a quality of life holiday which could be your last free without concern or dealings of side effects is absolutely a major consideration. Forgetting cancer, we all can be gone in an instant. Having that opportunity is huge especially in light of one consideration your Radiation team was saying it was fine to wait. I knew I had my cancer and the Surgeon was saying he did not think it was a good idea to hold off on it and the soonest available appointment was best. Well his soonest available put it in late June while our daughter was home for summer college break. I said no I am fine for in my case 6 weeks longer and went until mid August three days after returning our daughter to college. I was going to have a quality of life summer with our daughter not knowing how things could pan out.  

The RT is intended to be curative, so you can come off HT eventually, but it has its own side effects.