Phase Two Begins

  I realize it has been a while since I have shared anything about my journey. Let me take a few minutes to catch up.

I like this to a kitchen renovation. Phase one was dealing with the blocked ureter. Honestly, that seems to be going very well. i’ll have another ultrasound sometime before the end of the summer, but unless other symptoms come up, we will consider that matter addressed. I’m grateful at how well that went. Now, we get on.

Phase 2 is not exactly like new construction. Rather, it’s about learning to live with some of the things that came from the construction.  Maybe, it’s like going from a gas stove to an induction stove. There are new tools that weren’t enough previously. There are new dishes, because the old ones weren’t meeting the need.

I had a specialized PET scan. When you get a PET scan, it’s kind of like a CT scan with a particular kind of radiotracer. They injected me with the tracer, and I waited for about an hour, and once it had time to go through my system, which is to say once it had had time for any prostate cells to pick it up, they scanned me. We did pay for that, because we weren’t willing to wait while I got sicker so that my numbers would be appropriate for the insurer. Thankfully, the hospital was able to give a really significant discount for self-pay: I paid something like 9% of retail.

As has been my experience, such things are more interesting to me than frightening. This one was certainly an interesting experience, both watching the radiation tech sorting through heavy lead lined cases to find just my radiation marker, and going through the scan itself.

Perhaps the hardest thing about the scan, or at least the day of the scan, was that I finally went by my mother’s house to tell her what’s been going on. My mother is bedbound and somewhat limited. The longer you go in the day, the harder communication becomes. I was pleased that when I was talking to her, her questions and her answers seem to make sense. I was able to tell her what was going on with her son and why I hadn’t been around much for the last six months and why I wouldn’t be around much for the next few months while I get on to do things. But I was glad to have that done.

The next day I met my oncologist. Karen went with me. We both like him. He seems attentive and competent and personable. He laid out the plan for me and he had had a chance to see the results of the PET scan. I have been able to download it from my patient portal, but my urologist had already gotten it and he had sent it up to the oncologist. It’s comforting that they’re working together that well.

There was nothing in the PET scan that called for radiation treatment: there was no single node, no tumor, just some scattered cells in a couple of lymph nodes. So, in the next couple of weeks, I start androgen deprivation therapy or ADT. I have read up on it and watch some videos about it, and there may well be some side effects, but it looks like I’ll be able to live with them and live with this for a long time, at least that’s what it looks like right now.

What was really strange was that suddenly I had a different feeling as I said aloud to myself, “I’m a cancer patient.“ The funny thing is, of course, that I’ve been a cancer patient for years. I was a cancer patient and that’s why I had my prostate removed. I was a cancer patient and that’s why they took PSA labs every 3 to 4 months. I was a cancer patient, and that was confirmed when my PSA labs went from unreadable to readable to consistently and dependably readable. But sometimes in my life a fact hits home in a new way. Many years ago the same thing happened in an emergency room. I was doing fine and I was relaxed until the nurse started an IV, indicating I was going to be staying a while. So with this: sitting with a cancer doctor talking about my cancer studies, talking about my cancer, labs, talking about my cancer therapy, made for some really hard reality. As a result, I lost about three days, feeling sick. As much as anything else, it was probably stress relief because I have been working hard so long to hold up and be relaxed and be confident.

I am not afraid. At this point, I’m not dying. I’m not worrying about dying. On the other hand, I will be at least on ADT for the rest of my life, unless that fails badly. If on ADT, my PSA goes back to unreadable, we simply carry on. I deal with some lifestyle changes to help me cope with the symptoms, and perhaps get into appreciation of other people‘s troubles (apparently one of the more common side effects is hot flashes). But, as I said, at the beginning, in a very real way, my body is new to me. And here I am, have to learn how to do things differently.

My prayer these days is very casual. I’m pretty chatty with God, and if God is not chatty with me, I like to think that God is patient. I have neighbors, and bless their hearts, they will still be praying for my healing. I know God can heal me, but I know that that’s not really what God promises. I trust that God will be with me, and that being with me, he will help me see each day what I need to do next.

So, let’s get into phase 2. Who knows, I might yet get to see something done for my knees.