A little over a week ago, I hopped online around 10 p.m., checked my latest PSA results, and wrote my last blog post. None of that made for a good bedtime story.

The next day, I was exhausted from not sleeping well after receiving the news—so exhausted that I skipped out from work about an hour and a half early so I could go home and rest. Ever since then, I’ve been fine. I’ve accepted the new number and the fact that, once again, the only thing that I can control is how I react to it. In my heart, I expected the number to go up from the last test, and it did.

I did take a little time to search for some newer articles about salvage radiation therapy but they, like the PSA results, didn’t make for good bedtime reading either, so I put that on hold for now. I’ll be working on my list of questions for the doctor on 22 October, and we’ll go from there.

I’m pretty sure the writing is on the wall that that salvage radiation is in my future. It will take a while to get appointments set up for the radiation oncologist and to do any imaging that we can, and when you throw in the approaching holidays, I just don’t see radiation starting before the end of the year. I could be wrong. (Or, if things do happen quickly, I may just force the start to the beginning of the new year. Who wants to be getting zapped through the holidays? Seriously.)

In the mean time, I’m doing okay. Really. Just one appointment and test result at a time…

This post originally appeared on Dan’s Journey through Prostate Cancer. It is republished with permission.