I had a hormone shot the first of march to knock testosterone down to nothing so the cancer won't grow until they can deal with it. Testosterone was less than 20. Normal range is 200-700. PSA is a concern when over 4. Just before treatment started, it was 10.5. Now it is 0.6 and they want hormones to be low for a year. What do I have now? Hot flashes of all things. It comes and goes, but I am warmer than usual now.

Treatment is very close to starting since there was a backlog --- going to get protons for prostate cancer at MD Anderson. The machine we prefer is called pencil beam since it can take it down to a very small size with magnets. There is a lot less side effects than x-rays, which burn their way in and burn their way out at high intensity. Robot Surgery would be a one day procedure with several weeks recovery, but some of those little leftover tabs can regenerate into cancer and the proton guys must come in and run a treatment course anyway. I wanted protons to start with, and end it.
I qualified for a clinical trial since it is intermediate risk. that means 15 treatments at higher strength with a break day instead of the regular 39. You will see some intermittent vulture processing but I will be home on weekends.

Oh, the house was on fire last month. It's always something. We had one of those small self contained heating/cooling wall units like in a motel. The thing just started burning from the control unit, and it wasn't even on. It was plugged in. the power cord control thing was defective and recalled, but we did not know it. I put out the fire. If I had not been here, damage could have been extensive.

I saw a kissing bug on the screen a couple of days ago. They can spread Chagas disease, so I managed to get rid of it. We also have lone star ticks with 1 single spot on their back. One bite from them and you become a vegetarian since you get a meat allergy. Did I mention the fire ants, killer bees and rattlesnakes? This is getting almost as bad in the southern U.S. as Australia for crazy critters.

We had a hailstorm this week, but fortunately it was small.

My wife is recovering from a double fusion of 3 lumbar back vertebrae. There is no pain.

I could open a window, and sometimes I do, but it has some difficulties. Firstly the insurance wouldn't pay out if the house was left with windows open when no-one was at home. Which rules out leaving them open during the week for most of the day. And it's the hottest part of the day when they're shut, so any extra heat makes things worse.

The next problem is that the windows open at the bottom, but the heat rises so they're not that effective at getting rid of the excess heat. It works when it's not too hot outside or there is a good wind blowing. Then by opening opposite windows and leaving internal doors open you can get a cross-draft which works quite well.

The bigger problem is the legendary Scottish Midgie. Thanks to living out in the countryside surrounded by vegetation, with a small lake a couple of hundred yards away (and a couple of small streams as well) it's not very sensible to open the windows in the evening. Well not unless you want to be a blood donor to little beasties that make Dracula seem like an amateur.

Fortunately it has remained fairly mild so far this month, so production hasn't been scaled back too much yet.

Once in awhile we get a little gnat that comes in, but they aren't blood suckers.
Those would not be fun. Canada has their black flies and giant mosquitoes.

I am just trying to visualize what the "hottest part of the day" might be in Scotland ---- maybe like one of our winter days, which are mild. I am only at 30 degrees north latitude. Cross ventilation does work well when there is a breeze. No, I don't leave the windows open when I am not here either, and the computers are also shut off in case of lightning storms.

Cancer treatment is underway, with 4 out of 15 proton treatments done. No side effects at all. Well, I do have one, as a byproduct of close to zero testosterone --- hot flashes. I had a 6 month shot to knock that down, because it feeds the cancer. The U.K. doesn't have one of these type machines yet, but I saw a picture of a similar new machine that was being shipped in. I think they are combining it with a linear accelerator, which should be a cheaper option, but it might need more beam time per patient. I get about 2 minutes on the left, it rotates, and 2 minutes on the right. This is a "hypofractionated" double strength run as a clinical trial, separated by a day each time, so M-W-F until it is finished. This means that they could treat twice as many people that have the risk level to qualify. Overly aggressive cancers need a combination of things.

MD Anderson is a 3 hour drive away, so we are home for the weekend, and can go in monday morning since the first appointment this time isn't until mid-afternoon. The pencil beam machine is overloaded because it is so flexible, so times can wander around. Prostate types are also double booked, since we can be in and out in 15 minutes. We got lucky, with an apartment taken out by a church group and sublet to patients 3 weeks at a time. Cost is extremely reasonable. Food is a challenge, but we have a simple breakfast in the apartment. The rest is out there somewhere. A proton support group has a weekly lunch or supper.

only 2 more proton treatments left and it's all done -- no side effects
I don't have any indication of desired effect, but will have a PSA test in three months, which should be close to zero. While the cancer was active, it was 10.6. With lowered testosterone, it was 0.6 on May 1. It should remain there or a lot less, even with testosterone hopefully going back to normal.

New news from there: M D Anderson has a large synchrotron, 2 old school proton gantries and 1 new pencil beam scanning gantry, which I am on. They are going to double their size by adding another synchrotron and 3 more pencil beams. New ones are smaller so should be cheaper to built, but still expensive.

Unplanned outage Sunday June 25 and the whole world is down. All of mine are awaiting upload. I sent this to the website support thread.

I'm pleased to hear the treatment has gone well. Hopefully your regular checkups will remain boringly uneventful for many years to come.