When I found out I had the elevated levels of PSA, I just decided, you know, just get the test done, see what the results are going to be, and just go on down the road. Cancer. Doctor Sundaram is the urologist that I went to. Very thorough, very friendly guy. He explained to me what all of the different options were. It just seemed common sense to go with the low dose radiation because it's such a simple process. Roland decided to do external beam radiotherapy. That's our primary modality of delivering radiation. And whenever somebody's getting radiation for prostate cancer, we talk about placing Barrigel spacer to help reduce rectal side effects. Doctor. Sundom explained to me that the Barrigel spacer is an injectable gel that's injected between your rectum and your prostate. Barrigel Spacer works by increasing the distance between the prostate and the rectum, allowing the radiation planner and the dosimetrists to deliver the radiation needed to the prostate while sparing the rectum and reducing rectal side effects after radiation. As a radiation oncologist, I'll actually see the patient through the radiation course. In general, we can really focus the radiation beams right on the target. But when you add the Barrigel spacer, that extra little bit can really help push the rectum out of that high dose area. After the Barrigel placed, it stays in place and it stays stable throughout the length of radiation. The gel itself will last through the radiation before it's absorbed by the body. It's a very safe material, hyaluronic acid, which has a very safe side effect profile. It was a quick, one time procedure. And after it was implanted, I left there, drove myself home, and never noticed it was there again. Roland, like most patients, had not ever heard of spacing in the treatment of radiation for prostate cancer. We'd been using spacers awhile, but when we first started using Barrigel, it was kinda like a light went off in our head. Finally, we could control the application of the gel to make sure that every patient had a symmetric response and had a good result that would help them with their radiation treatment. It's such a great procedure to help protect the rectum while also with the extra space I might be able to give some extra radiation which could actually lead to better cancer control, better outcomes. Sometimes I'll even talk with my urologist like, Hey, we're trying to give more radiation on this side of the prostate, so could you give a little bit more barrigel rectal spacer in this area to create more space to kind of allow the plan to be even better? We can really customize it for the patient, for their plan of care. The radiation part lasted forty five days. It was a very smooth process all the way through for me. No issues of any kind. I had zero rectal side effects of any kind. When you've taken the patients from their first steps of an elevated PSA through treatment, it's pretty fulfilling to see them going about their normal life and saying, I'm pretty much back to normal. I can definitely sleep easier at night knowing that we've done everything we can to really minimize their risk of long term rectal side effects. Barrigel Rectal Spacer allows the patient and the doctor to feel better about that. After the radiation was done, I felt free. You just go about your life, you know, do what you were doing prior to having the cancer.