As I it down to write this blog today, several titles came to mind; WHAT IS OLD IS NEW, HERE WE GO AGAIN, SHED NO TEARS but nothing seemed to fit the story.
In early December I had a routine appointment with my cancer clinc Nurse Practitioner and the news wasn't good. My PSA, the test that kind of indicates how fast the Prostate Cancer is growing, numbers were up and they were growing at an alarming rate. Also scans indicated that I had more cancer movement on my bones, but at this point in time it is leaving my organs alone.What this meant among the obvious was that the $4,000 per month pills were not doing their job. Now these pills were never meant forever, in fact they loose their effectiveness eventually but the hope was several years not less than months.
I was then referred back to my Oncologist who came up with basically two therapies we can go to at this point.
Therapy One: Intravenous Chemotherapy, worked before, we know how my body reacted to the toxins, but it is aggressive and attacks everything in your body.
Therapy Two: Intravenous radiation: less side effects, targets the cancer on my bones only but we don't know how my body will react.
The Dr. gave us the information we needed to make a decision, told us to go home have a great Christmas and we would see him in January. Back in January we went and the Oncologist who was leaning towards the intravenous radiation therapy was actually now recommending Chemo again. In the month off after reviewing his files, my health and the fact I have virtually no symptoms Chemo made more sense now and then the other therapy later if needed. Our next question was when do you want to start the Chemo and the Dr.'s answer was " next week and oh by the way I don't want you to work this time while taking the Chemo so you are going to take the next 5-6 months off.
So the journey continues, I have great and loving family, friends and church community. The first session is in the book and now to set up a routine. Life is good.
As before I'll keep this blog going at least for the life of this session and perhaps some more random thoughts will get jotted down while I'm off.
Normally I don't dedicate these Random thoughts to anything or anyone, but Leslie, a friend, lost her Mom over the weekend and the memorial was Tuesday during my Chemo. My thoughts were with you friend sorry I couldn't be there to share Len's Celebration of Life.
