Life From Here # 101----Update

I hate to start out on a negative note so let me say that it’s early spring and feels like it, and it’s Daylight Savings Time, which is wonderful!……The bad news is my condition seems to be Going To Shit In A Hand Basket!

I did not get treated today because the Taxotere did nothing to reduce the speed and scale in which my PSA* is growing. The Doc at Duke said he put very little weight on the PSA and even predicted that next time I came in it would be about where it is now. I’m to meet the Duke Doc again tomorrow to discuss a couple of clinical trials. They are phase one trials; which means they’ve never been tried on humans before. So I get to play Lab Rat after all. I hope I don’t gain or lose any body parts along the way.

I didn’t mention the actual PSA number the last couple of times because I was very hopeful it would be less after my last treatment. But, since I’ve been pretty open about what is going on I feel the need to give you the numbers now…..they’re frightening.

Four weeks ago when I went to Duke the first time my PSA had gone from 420, thanks to the chemo Jevtana (i.e. it didn’t work), to 630, that was February 15th. By the time I went in for my last Taxotere treatment February 28th it was 934….today, 3 weeks later, it’s 1,300. The Duke Doc said on February 15th “next time I see you it will be 1,200” he was Pretty close. Hell, I remember a few years ago getting upset because my PSA had risen to 6.

I’ve had a lot of people comment on something from my last post where I briefly described what I call “Interior Thought”. Described in the Blog as “the time with yourself where you contemplate your fate, imagine your future, tell yourself the truth and cleanse your soul.

This is how it goes for me. The first thing I have to do is be brutally honest with myself. I have to identify and face my monsters.....For me, it requires me to see the reality that this disease may get me in the end, right now it’s termed incurable. But I’m not ruling out a miracle…..I’ve been pulled from in front of the train too many crucial times in my life not to even expect it.

The big question is when? And that’s where I come in…..I genuinely don’t see my demise anytime in the near future, so that’s my story and I’m sticking with it! That’s why I’m pleased to report, as in my last Blog that….I’m still OK! I believe in the power of Prayer and Spiritual Energy and I believe in a God that has always answered me in the past.

In some ways I’m more optimistic because I think I will finally get closer to treatment at Duke and that, in my mind, is where the miracles are.

I know everyone is tired of hearing this but I hate to eat! I’ve never liked to eat and that is the one part of my attitude that I struggle with the most. My taste is OK, my hunger is real but my appetite is non- existent. I just force it down and chase it with coke or wine. And then there’s the bone pain and yadda, yadda, cue the violins!

I will post again after my meeting tomorrow with a short update.

Let me assure you that my attitude is as positive as ever, I still have plenty of fight left and I intend to use that to defeat or at least slow down the beast!

Your Prayers and Spiritual Energy have gotten me this far, Thank You and keep it coming…..I’m accepting them sending it right back to you.


Bob


* PSA stands for prostate-specific antigen.  It's the measure of a protein given off by prostate cancer cells only and is a base line for determining the extent of the disease. in a normal male it should be 0 or .05.