An eight-week course of radiotherapy, to treat my prostate cancer, starts soon. So, in preparation I spent most of yesterday at Guy’s Cancer Centre being scanned, measured and probed by a series of large, impressive machines. The one you see above is a General Electric CT scanner. The machinery was operated by a bunch of brisk, caring NHS staff.

Before the radiotherapy starts the docs need to have my prostate mapped so they know where to shoot their rays. They aim to target just my prostate, currently home to the Unwelcome Guest, and leave the healthy tissue alone. Having said that if all goes well, when they hit the cancer it should die, whereas the healthy tissue should regenerate.

The CT scanner does the mapping, but it needs help. That involves my bowels being empty and my bladder being full of water – 350ml to be exact. A cannula was jabbed into my arm, so they could fire dye into my blood stream which apparently makes the prostate and attendant lymph nodes glow in the dark. The technicians also have to fix my position, so it can be replicated while I’m under the gadget that dishes out the radio beams. To help them achieve this I’m now the proud owner of three tattoo crosses which will help them line me up. This seems either charmingly low-tech or alarmingly unscientific depending on your view of such things.

So, I’m lying there, the machinery is whizzing, and all seems to be going well until suddenly it grinds to a halt. The machine, a stickler for such things, has deemed that my bowels are not sufficiently evacuated so I’m sent to the loo with a flea in my ear and an enema to stuff up my arse. What women say about childbirth is equally true here, you check your dignity at the door.

While nature takes its course, I read my book and drink yet another 350ml of water. This all takes around an hour, but this time my bowels are deemed to be in peak condition and the scan gets underway and lasts just a few minutes. I’m not shown the results, but I’m reliably informed the docs now have access to an ordinance survey map of my prostate.

Next up is an MRI scan which is part of a trial I’ve agreed to and is not a feature of current radiotherapy treatment. The trial is an attempt to harness the imaging of both the CT and MRI scans to improve the accuracy of the ray guns which target the luckless prostate. Apparently, a lot of maths is involved, so I think I’ll leave that to them.

MRI scanners and I have form and let me say right away I’m not a fan. My first MRI took place in the 90s to determine whether I had a prolapsed disc in my back – I did. Then around nine months ago I had another scan to check the size and general ugliness of the Unwelcome Guest. It was 10mm’s ugly.

This latest instalment was no better. You are stuck in a tube and as mentioned in a previous blog, the sound the machine makes is the equivalent of living next door to a heavy metal band. Every tune is in a relentless, thunderous 4/4 time signature. No waltz time for this baby. Despite wearing headphones to muffle the racket, after 45 minutes I’ve definitely had my fill.

The staff are grateful for my participation and I’m grateful to be gone. As I leave I’m handed my radiotherapy schedule. The fun starts at 8.30 on 12^th September and grinds to a halt on 7^th November. I will be reporting on my progress, so join me if you feel inclined, as Jim’s cancer capers continue.

Probably like you, I’ve been sizzling in sun rays this summer, but very soon, as part of my prostate cancer treatment, I’ll be bathing in radio waves. I’ve known for some time that radiotherapy, the pointy end of my treatment, would start in September. It was established early on, that my prostate was not ripe for removal, so I’ve been on hormone therapy to shrink the Unwelcome Guest and that treatment, despite some irritating side-effects, seems to be working well. Now it’s nearly time to enjoy seven weeks as a guest on Radio Therapy.

You, dear reader, have almost certainly never had radiotherapy and I hope you never do, but this is the kind of cancer stuff that rarely gets talked about except among family and friends. So, I thought some of you might be interested to know what goes on. If you’d rather hack your arm off with a blunt penknife, I totally get it. Go find some more pleasant, diverting activity: take the dog for a walk, play guitar, read a book – I would probably do the same.

Anyone still here? OK well, it all starts, as does just about everything these days, with a PowerPoint presentation. To which you might say, Christ haven’t these poor bastards suffered enough? At 10am on a bright, clear, sunny day, the cancer contingent all trooped into a room in the urology department at Guy’s Hospital to find out our fate. Most were surprisingly chipper, though some looked as though life had taken a couple of chunks out of them. We all had a question on our lips: Radiotherapy, what’s that like then?

Jenna, the bright and breezy Urology Advanced Practitioner, had the answers. I’m to have radiotherapy five days a week for seven weeks at the same time and place every day. I get weekends off for good behaviour. The treatment doesn’t hurt and I’m not walking round like some kind of mobile Chernobyl, I’m safe to handle, but there are side effects. More about those in a moment.

I’ve never been a tattoo kind of guy. In my youth it was squaddies, crims and sailors who got inked, not nice middle-class boys like me. All that’s set to change. I’m now getting three tattoos, one on each hip and one just below my navel. These small dots will be used to line me up on the Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy do-dat in the same, correct position each time. Fairly soon, I have a terrible feeling I’m going to start talking about my ‘cancer journey’. If I do, a sharp blow to the head should fix it.

Us prostate people will also be drinking gallons of water over the coming weeks to enlarge our collective bladders (that might be an image you’re going to struggle to forget). This pushes the healthy organs out of the radio beam’s intrusive gaze and makes sure it’s just the prostate that receives both barrels. In fairness that’s not exactly the words Jenna used.

But hey, it’s not all just fun stuff. While the treatment may be pain free it does come with some baggage. It seems that about a month into the treatment I may start to feel dog tired and will have to take to my basket. I may be hopping to the loo twice a night and also my bowels…. whoa, whoa, whoa, actually you know what? You’ve suffered enough, if you want to know more Google it.

After the seven weeks the cancer should be nailed, but cancer is nothing if not a slippery bastard, so I’m then monitored every few months to see if the Guest has checked out or has decided to dash back because it had forgotten something.

Towards the end of the talk a little wizened man at the front who hadn’t said much suddenly piped up: “Can we drink alcohol during the treatment?” It was a sort of cartoon moment, there was total silence and total concentration as the room collectively held its breath. Well Jenna, well, can we?

I’ll keep you posted.