(this was intended to be posted 2-18 but we had a glitch)

Two years to the day, I was told “You have Prostate Cancer, and it has advanced into your bones and lymph nodes.

Though Dr. D never told us how bad the odds were, I know I have read the statistics on several occasions. It’s something as bad as “less than a 25% chance of surviving for five years”. Pretty glum when it’s put that way?

However, to that statistic I say, on the anniversary of the diagnosis; phooey! I was going to say something a little stronger but I try to keep this rated G as much as possible. I may not live to be one hundred but five years will be here and gone before I know it. I’ve learned a lot since being diagnosed with cancer. Perhaps the most important thing is that there are no certainties. All the doctors can do is try to put you in a category, based on what they have studied and seen before. This is certainly not meant to slam the medical community. I’m just pointing out that every case is different, and because of that, cancer survivors must grab on to two fundamental things, faith and hope.

Two years later and an unbelievable roller coaster ride of emotional highs and lows, here I am. I am stronger both physically and mentally and ready to take on the world. It hasn’t, nor will it be easy. Mary and I try not to look too far ahead, as we never know what’s going to happen next. Despite the anxiety we face each month, as my PSA level is tracked and the determination is made if we are still effectively managing the growth of the cancer, we are encouraged with the research that is being done to find improved treatments to combat this disease. Prayer is our most powerful resource and I thank everyone who continues to support us through prayers for healing.

In reflection, I have made new friends, strengthened other friendships and impacted people I have never even met. It’s been a journey of a lifetime. A journey and a lifetime, that have only just begun.

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The weather FINALLY broke here today. The temperature rose over fifty degrees so of course we had to play Disc Golf! It was still a bit chilly at 8:00 AM with four or five inches of snow still on the ground. There were just six of us adventurous enough to play so we paired up and headed out. It was an enjoyable morning. After not playing for almost a month, I was pleased to have shot a score in the 40s, for the first time, 48 to be exact. I so look forward to Spring!

I have shared here before many, many times that we, the men with PC and those that support us, are not doing enough for the cause. What I am suggesting is so little, not a fund raiser, not a tremendous amount of your time, a simple phone call, a quick email is all it takes.

I attended a charity dinner last night for the local children’s hospital here in Kansas City. At the table was a friend I had met 18 months ago, just 6 months after my diagnosis. At our first meeting I apparently put the fear of God in him as it relates to PC. He returned to his office after lunch that day and told everyone in the office my story and the importance of being tested. One younger man in his office, who was just forty years old at the time reluctantly made an appointment with his General Practitioner. Four days ago he had a Radical Prostatectomy and is recovering at home.

What started as a lunch, turned into detection, turned into an operation, that may save this man’s life.

Make a call to a relative or an old friend; tell a stranger my story or your own or that of a relative with PC. Tell them the importance of getting tested. You never know how it might impact their life or yours.

Today is the first of two upcoming anniversaries I’d rather just forget.

2-11-05, the day I received the results of my biopsy and the phone call confirming that I officially had Prostate Cancer. My how many things have changed in the past two years. I have made so many new friends, I hope I have affected a few lives in a positive way, and through the generosity of the supporters of FLHW we are making a difference.

The road ahead holds many things,
Most of them are yet foreseen,
But strength I gather from my God,
Allows me to continue my plod.

So many things to be thankful for,
Friends and family new and old.
I count the blessings in my life,
Most of all my son and my wife.

The road ahead holds many things,
Hope and promise are around the bend,
Stronger today than yesterday,
In mind and body to you Lord I pray.

The Faith, Love, Hope, Win Foundation is having their second Texas Hold ’em Poker Tournament.
The event will be February 20th.
Click here for details

The goal is to attract 100 players in order to raise awareness and funds for Advanced Prostate Cancer research.

Anyone else watch American Idol? Well we watched it last Spring for the first time, but only the finals. Now I know why, the audition process, which is in some instances quite painful to watch, attracts a broad spectrum of people..some with great potential, others with no talent what so ever! I’ll leave it at that!

Anyway, back to my point. Olivia Newton John was on Idol the other night as a guest judge. ONJ was wearing a shirt that had ‘It is what it is’ imprinted on the front, I want one….well the men’s version anyway! That’s my new mantra, ‘It is what it is’.

I got my results from my blood test taken Monday: PSA level was ‘20.9’.
That is up slightly from last month when the number was ‘18.9’, but not enough to worry the doctor (or me!). I always liked the phrase, ‘statistically insignificant’! I’m not sure why? Today it has meaning to me.

The Doc isn’t sweating it, neither am I, after all, ‘It is what it is’!!!

Two years ago today (2/2/05) this blog was born. Two years, 200+ entries, Happy B-day blog!!! I hope it has provided insight, inspiration, laughter and occasionally convinced someone to act (get tested, change their diet, start to exercise, etc.). I try not to harp on the latter two, change is tough. All I’ll say is this, and I realize it’s easy to just say this; “don’t wait until you are forced to change, choose to change”.

I’ve also changed the template – it’s a work in progress.

Two years ago tomorrow I had my biopsy, enough said.
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Where does the time go?
Monday will mark another month gone by and that means it’s time for a doctor visit!
PSA test, two minutes with Dr. H and thirty minutes in the chemo room. Certainly not “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”, more like “The Bleed, the Blah and the Bleak”.

I haven’t talked much about the ‘Infusion Room’, as it’s better described as the ‘chemo room’. Most times all 15+ chairs are full, the occupants being mostly older patients, men and women, going through chemo. There are a few familiar faces, at least traces of familiarity. I think I remember a face from previous months? The treatments have changed their skin color, or their eyes are sunken, it’s not pretty, obviously.

With that in mind, I look ahead. I pray that my current treatment regimen can hold this beast at bay for months, years? Perhaps research similar to this article below is right around the corner.
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Perhaps I’ll be the first to post a story about such a phenomenon? I have to give credit where credit is due however, it was my brother-in-law that coined the term.

Yes, I was suffering from ‘Wii-Knee’ over the weekend. For those of you who may not be familiar with the term ‘Wii’ [pronounced ‘we’], it is a new video game console from Nintendo. It was sort of a run away hit over the holidays. What makes it unique is that you wave the remote control around to play the game. Tennis, swing the remote like a tennis racket, bowling, golf, baseball, etc. swing the remote like the club, bat or racket.

Well Friday night I played a few games of tennis and towards the end, I twisted a little too much and ‘tweaked’ my knee. I thought nothing of it but then Saturday morning when we played disc golf I noticed I was having problems squatting down. It didn’t effect my game (more on that later) but occasionally there was a twinge of pain. (side note, Mary has forbid me from playing for awhile! Just when I was getting the backhand kill shot down!!)

I mentioned it to Rich while playing disc golf Saturday morning and his response was “You have Wii-knee!” which led to ‘you are a wii-knee’ etc., all directed my way with the light heartiness I have come to expect from our group.

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Saturday we played birthday disc golf. We played teams again because the group was large enough. After flipping for partners I realize Joe and I are partnered again. Usually this would be good news as Joe is the best player in the group. However, over the last three or four months Joe and I have been paired together and the results have been horrible. We’ll play well in every aspect of the game, except when it comes to putting. I think the last time we might have even finished last!

I looked at Joe and said ‘not today, not on my birthday!”. In an attempted to shorten this post, we came through shooting a ‘-4’, winning by five or six strokes!
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Saturday night I had dinner with my favorite person in the world, Mary and four other people that rank right up there, my brother and sister in law (who shares a birthday with me…although her first birthday came a couple of years after mine.) and Pete and Joe.
It was fantastic! A great meal (Ahi Tuna for me) with great company! I couldn’t have hoped for a better birthday!!
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Sunday we got up and played in the ‘Ice Bowl’. The Ice Bowl is an annual international event where each local disc golf club holds their own tournament. The money raised goes to a local charity of choice (the Bishop Sullivan Center here in KC). There are three rules for the Ice Bowl: – It cannot be canceled regardless of the weather
– No wimps, No whiners
– No excuses

We played last year as well when the weather was a balmy 60 degrees. Yesterday at 8:30am the temperature was a little different; 13 degrees!! The only thing that made it bearable was the fact there was little to no wind. I was never cold though. With four layers of clothes on top, a ski mask (thanks to Rich), two pairs of socks and ‘hot hands’ pocket warmers it was an all together beautiful morning. Our group of six was the second group out so we were done by 10:45. I ended up shooting +1 (55) which was good enough for about 30th place out of 210 players. We left for a few hours, enjoyed some steaming hot chicken chili and returned for the last nine holes at 3pm. Joe and I struggled in the woods and ice, Rich shot even par and likely placed in the top 20!! Official results have not been published.

We ended the day with a nice family gathering and enjoyed a great dinner complete with a delicious angel food cake that Mary made topped with fresh berries. All together, it was the birthday weekend I was hoping I would experience; full of family, friends, great food and good times!!!!

Tomorrow I turn 44. Usually not a real eventful or ‘milestone’ birthday. After 21, what else is there to look forward to? For me however, they’ve become more important milestones once again. the feeling reminds me of when we were little and you looked forward to being ten, or thirteen, etc., it didn’t matter, it was still an important accomplishment.

Now for me, every single year becomes an important milestone, another year older, another year filled with time shared with family, friends, life and of course, another year of beating this monster back!

So I submit this blog, on my Birthday Eve. I am thankful to God for another year and I pray to that same God for many, many, many more.
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As to not end this on a somber note, let’s all think of the Geiko commercial. The little short guy (I guess it’s not PC to call him a midget? “Height challenged” perhaps? Whatever, it’s my blog!), so the midget is standing there,and he sings “Oh, yeah, it’s my birthday…..” Everyone together now, “Oh, yeah, it’s my birthday…..”

There is a friend of mine, I’ve mentioned him before, he’s a guy that I’ve worked with in the past, and now he has PC. He’s much more private about the whole affair than I am, but then again, who isn’t!! Anyway, in response to my last post, he sent me a long note that included this passage. With his permission, I would like to share it with you:

“I’ve been a soldier who has given as good as he got, I’ve been a cop.. I’ve had 2 heart attacks and 1 mini stroke.. Now I have PC… If anyone says they are not scared, they are a fraud… Some, like me, don’t like to show it on the outside…. But we are screaming on the inside.”

I couldn’t have said it any better myself. Thanks RT…I’m screaming with you Brother!!!

I’ve been published!!
I wrote an article last fall for a competition in ‘Disc Golf World’ magazine. I recently found out that my story won for the ‘travel’ category! For regular readers, some of this article may seem familiar, as it draws from my trip overseas last summer.

Here’s the link, I have added it to the right as well.

http://www.flhw.org/disc-tractions.pdf

We are deep in the throws of winter, a snow storm that is expected to bring us 3-6″ by morning is well under way.

Mary and I had a date night last night. We had a lovely dinner at Bravo, a local Italian eatery and then went to see the new Will Smith movie. ‘The Pursuit of Happyness“. It was really good,
moving, but not real uplifting. I thought the ending was rushed…..

I’ve been watching “The Band of Brothers” the last few weekends. If you are not familiar with the series it was a ten part HBO series that originally aired back in 2001. It tells the true story of Easy Company, part of the 101st Airborne. The series follows them from boot camp, to D-Day and across Holland, the Battle of the Bulge and into Austria as WWII concludes. If you’ve never seen it, you must. I had forgotten how the story and the characters just suck you in and break your heart.

For me, the most emotional part was in episode nine. After crossing Europe with these guys, watching as theu get injured, watching them die, watching them break, I felt sucker punched when they come across a concentration camp.

While I remember seeing films in grade school and watching Schindler’s List, etc. and being moved, this morning for some reason I was brought to tears? Watch it some time; let me know if it affects you similarly.

The FDA is going to “Fast Track“ Provenge….

My fingers are crossed but it looks like we might not have an answer until May.

I’m just hoping I won’t need Provenge for a long, long time!
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On another note; I received another reminder the other day of just how fortunate I am. I know a women who is battling cancer, as is her husband and now so is her mother. Remarkably she is so stoic, strong, together. It is her strong belief in God that gets her through day to day.

I can’t imagine? Couple this burden with two more….
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It’s cold here in KC, overnight lows near zero. It is supposed to reach a balmy 38 by tomorrow…..just over eight weeks until Spring! Green grass, tulips and hyacinth….I can’t wait.