There's one day to go before I catch a few rays as Darryl Jones (no not the bass player, this is a fellow Nimmer) so aptly put it.  In a way though, it's started already.  Here's the story so far... all the things I've had to have done to prepare me for the radiation therapy to come.

First, back in early November, I had to have gold seeds inserted.  Gold Seed Insertion involves me lying down on a couch in the urology department with my knees under my chin and my arse sticking out so the doctor could insert first her fingers and then I have no idea what inside my rectum.

I don't know what it was she put in there but it hurt like buggery.  In fact, it probably hurt MORE than buggery because if buggery hurt that much, I can't imagine anybody wanting to do it.  The point of this undignified and painful exercise was to insert three tiny pieces of gold into my prostate in such a position that it would become easy to aim the beams, hopefully without zapping my bladder, or bowels or anything else other than the prostate and the lymph nodes.

So I'm lying there on the slab and she shoves it in and I let out a moan and then a loud GODVERDOMME! and it goes on BOZHE MOI and MEERY DIERIE DOVVEL! and finally a resounding MOTHER FFFFFUCKER!  I apologised of course, for such foul language but they understood, especially when I said it had hurt more than the biopsy itself.

That's not the end though.  A month or so ago, I had to have a planning scan, where they made sure my prostate was in the right place and aimed laser beams and tattooed me where the beams should go.  A much less undignified procedure and even the cannula that Yann (one of the radiology nurses) inserted was not particularly painful this time.

There is a downside though.  to get ready I need an empty bowel and a full bladder.  I'll explain the procedure after I've had the first dose, but beforehand, I have to get ready, so... no fizzy drinks including beer, no drinking from the bottle, no caffeine, no beans, no peas, no lentils, no bananas, no melons, no prunes, no broccoli, no cauliflower, no fatty food, no brussels sprouts, no chocolate, and I must drink plenty water to get well hydrated, difficult indeed with the heating on all night.

The worst of that, of course is the caffeine withdrawal combined with a vitamin D deficiency caused by my forgetting to get more calcichew.  My head hurts, my bones hurt and I want to sleep forever.  Other than that, all is fine and dandy.

Tot ziens.