Great news

On the way to the hospital this morning I stopped for a second to watch a group of starlings who were up to their antics. First they took turns to swoop on a berry-laden tree along the road and flit between there and a nearby chimney, and then, in response to some secret signal, off they all went to congregate on the chimney and the roof it's on. I'm regularly fascinated by starlings at this time of year (time was they'd take over O'Connell Street before our city fathers spent a fortune 'upgrading' it and uprooted all the starlings' favourite trees), and I was sorry I didn't have more time this morning to stand and stare.

This morning's appointment was with the radiation oncologist, arranged as a see-how-things-are-going chat, mainly to discuss the results of the PSA blood test I had done ten days ago. Something about his body language told me the minute I went into his room that the news was good, but nothing prepared me for just how good we were talking about. My PSA back in January and again in February was 16, way, way above the value of 4 which is considered acceptable. Now it's gone down to 0.3!!!

The consultant told me this is the most dramatic reduction he's ever seen in such a short time (after just five hormone injections). I'm due a repeat MRI on 17th November, and will see him again in December. In his opinion, it will be most surprising if the MRI does not show a remarkable improvement in the situation, hopefully to include elimination of the 'abnormality' which originally concerned him so much. He's still keen to add radiation treatment to the mix, and we'll talk about that when I see him next. Assuming things go as expected, the risk of unwanted radiation side-effects should be virtually non-existent.

As I said when I made some phone calls, I'm sure nobody would have recognised me as I left the hospital because the smile on my face was so wide.

The starlings were gone when I made my way home.