chemotherapy

#5, 9-2-08

Advanced Prostate Cancer, chemotherapy, David Emerson, Macon MO, Olathe Disc Golf, PCa -
Tomorrow is chemo treatment number five.

We spent Friday night through Sunday noon at my brothers place in Macon, Mo.
We ate really well (grilled glazed salmon one night, smoked chicken with grilled pineapple another)! Brad got to ride the four wheeler all by himself, he was getting pretty good tearing through the mud by the time we left! As in the past I mowed grass for about two hours on Saturday morning and then chopped about a quarter cord of firewood. Strange, but very therapeutic for me.

Last night I finished another book, James Patterson’s “1st To Die”. A very interesting murder – mystery. What I didn’t know before I started the book was that the main character begins a battle with a potentially incurable disease. I have a knack for movies and books with characters like this one. This was the first in a series of six. I bought numbers two and three at Target today.

This morning we played disc golf. I shot four over par at a course we don’t play very often. After I returned home I spent around two hours doing much needed yard work. Tending to the vegetable garden, trimming and fertilizing our roses etc. After that, I spent another two hours painting window frames.

Why bore you with all these details? Just trying to point out that once again, I seem to have fully recovered three weeks after my last treatment.

Here’s to number five; may my tests bring good news and may God grace me with the strength to combat the side effects one more time.

Peace be with everyone.

BIG NEWS, GOOD NEWS….BIG GOOD NEWS!

Advanced Prostate Cancer, chemotherapy, David Emerson, Lovenox, Lupron, PSA, taxotere -

I was going to drag this out, be cute, be creative, etc. but I am tired!
My PSA today was 39.98, a 25% reduction from three weeks ago!!!
WOO-HOO!!!!!!!!!!!!
As I mentioned above, I am beat. We did not sleep well last night, and we had to leave the house at 7:15 this morning to make the 8:00 appointment. I had both my monthly appointment for Lupron and Zometa and my three week chemo treatment all in the same day. We were through at the hospital 12:30ish. In the four and a half hours we were there, I had the following procedures:
– 8:35 blood drawn
> White blood count back up to over 12 !!!!
> Most other markers were back in range, red blood count was still a little low, but no show stopper
– 9:00 Met with Doctor V, the Physicians Assistant and the Clinical Trial Coordinator
Everything seems to be progressing as expected with the blood clot in my leg. The good Doctor did give me the green light to play golf on Wednesday afternoon, so I was happy
– 10:00 Began pre-treatments
– 10:40 Began Taxotere infusion #4
– 11:45 Began Zometa infusion
– 12:20 Received the Lupron shot
Mary and I made our usual stop for lunch at The Blue Koi and were home by 2:00.

“WBC” at an all time low….

Advanced Prostate Cancer, chemotherapy, David Emerson, wbc, white blood cell count -

I just received a fax with the results of Monday’s blood test and my white blood cells have run off somewhere!
WBC count: 1.7

White blood cell count (WBC) – The number of white blood cells in a specified volume of blood. White blood cells form the mainstay of your immune system — a low number might increase your risk of infection and a high number possibly indicating that you have an infection.
According to today’s report, normal is between 4.0 and 10.5. At 1.7 all I can say is Yikes! It’s amazing that I’m not more fatigued. Overall, the key is to reach full recovery by August 11th. My red blood cell count is still in the normal range so there is some good news.
By the way, I’m sure you’ve noticed something looks different around here? Brown was so blah, this place needed a little sprucing up! I hope you like it?
Just a brief update, enough for today!

The brick wall

chemotherapy, David Emerson, disc golf, FLHW, Jack Johnson, Journey to the Center of the Earth -

So last week caught up with me on the back 9 Saturday morning. I played pretty good on the front but when we made the turn, my body and brain forgot to follow! I flamed out due to a combination of wicked summertime humidity and overextending myself!

Just to recap last week:
Monday: Chemo treatment #3
Tuesday: Work day, then Tom Petty concert after 3.5 hours of sleep
Wednesday: Work day, 9 hole golf league after 5 hours of sleep
Thursday: Work day
Friday: 1/2 Work day, then 18 hole golf tournament
Saturday: usual disc golf round, then I took Brad to see “Journey to the Center of the Earth” in 3D

So by yesterday, Mary was none to happy with me, and frankly, I can’t blame her. However, I have always been this way; I can’t just sit around, I have to be doing something. Even yesterday, I had breakfast with a PCa friend, went to Mass and then I went to serve my time under house arrest. I worked on bills, the FLHW.org Foundation business and did a few loads of laundry. Just “took it easy”!

So we reach Monday. I got a great nights sleep, worked out and gave my blood sample this morning. I feel so much better than Saturday or Sunday.

I really don’t have a conclusion here? I guess I’ll just say this “Mary, I promise the week after my August 11th treatment, I will take things MUCH easier than this week!”

That is, unless Mark calls me with an 11th hour cancellation to the Jack Johnson concert on the 15th!!!!

OK, just kidding Mary…..sort of…..

I Don’t like Monday’s

Advanced Prostate Cancer, chemotherapy, David Emerson, Dexamethasone, Monday songs, PCa -

…and a few others….

“Monday, Monday” -The Mamas & The Papas
“Manic Monday” -The Bangles
“Monday Morning” -Fleetwood Mac
“Come Monday” -Jimmy Buffet
“Stormy Monday” -The Allman Bros.

The Dex won the battle last night! I woke at 1:30, tossed and turned until 2:15 then got sucked into “The Wire” again until about 4:45am. Maybe 30 minute more sleep and Buck and I got up at 6:30.

I am currently attempting to function on about 3 1/2 hours of sleep. I should go home but have a number of calls to be on at work this morning.

Yesterday’s appointment was long. I guess I am just going to have to stop complaining about it and get used to it. Things were running behind again; we arrived at 8:30 and left at about 1:45. We got lunch, ran an errand and returned home just before 4:00pm.

Somehow we found the energy to got see “Momma Mia” at 5:15, it was good. Definitely a ‘chick flick’ but I really enjoyed it, even the Abba music. You know they are from Sweden, apparently they opened a museum last year in Stockholm. I guess my visit there was a year early!

My White Blood Count returned to normal levels as did most of my others. My red is right on the border line of low but nothing seemed to alarm the doc.

My PSA remained steady at 53.4, at least it has reached a plateau. We were told by Dr. Van, and had read on-line, that it can take 10-12 weeks before we see results. This was just 6 week so we are hoping the tide will begin to turn next appointment (August 11).

That’s the recap for my Monday!

Check point

Advanced Prostate Cancer, chemotherapy, David Emerson, Indiana Jones -

Nothing eventful to report today. My next treatment is in a week and I’m still feeling great, I have all my hair and am dealing with the metallic mouth.

According to this mornings blood test however, my white blood count is down to 2.9 (normal 10-12 range). This dropped from last week. During treatment 1 wbc dropped the first week and recovered in weeks 2 and 3. This time it dropped after week 1 and further after week 2. I sure hope it recovers for next week.

Overall my combined counts are fine, just a little low on the wbc and red blood cell count.
PSA will not be checked until next week.

The weekend was rather normal; disc golf three days in a row. Friday we had a department event and the managers cooked pancakes for breakfast then I taught 17 people how to play the game. I only walked along and gave guidance as we played nine holes, I think everything really enjoyed the morning.

Saturday I played with a small group but it included one of my co-workers from Friday! We were delayed by rain about half way through but finished in time to drive through a mid-summer monsoon on the way home. Sunday my brother in law Rich put a whooping on me, and even as competitive as I am, it was fun to watch!

Saturday we saw the new Indiana Jones movie, I’d give it a C+. We had most of the family over yesterday for dinner and as I mentioned above I had my monthly appointment this morning. This was for Lupron and Zometa, the chemo treatment is next week.

Back to the grind……

Ironman

Advanced Prostate Cancer, chemotherapy, David Emerson, Ironman, metallic mouth -

I still need to see the movie “Ironman”, I hear it’s really good. Perhaps this weekend with Brad?

However, the reference and reason for my post is I now officially am experiencing my first
side-effect from chemo; metallic mouth. The best way to describe it is my tongue feels and tastes like it does after you drink something too hot. Everything tastes a little strange, though nothing has been offensive enough to stop me from eating it yet!

Now it’s off to lunch….. nothing else to report today!

My own rendition of “24”

Advanced Prostate Cancer, chemotherapy, David Emerson, University of Kansas Cancer Center -

Though I’ve not seen the show, I feel like Kiefer Sutherland on a bad episode of 24.

In the last 24 hours (pun intended) the adage I repeat ad nausea has really come to fruition; it’s not all about me!!!

At 4:20am this morning my sister-in-law gave birth to twins. They just moved here last week from Chicago and perhaps the stress of the move accelerated the arrival of the two into the world. Thank God as of 10:00am this morning, Mom, Sean and Kaitlyn are resting comfortably!

My beautiful niece and her wonderful boyfriend Alex are now engaged! They have been dating for almost five years, they are both juniors at Kansas State University – another reason for me to battle on……a wedding!!!!

My brother Doug spent the night in the hospital. What started out as back pains a few days ago has turned into some type of Gall Bladder issue. He is having additional testing today, we’re are praying for good news.

Had she still been with us, today would have been my mothers 75th birthday, Happy 75th Mom!

Wow, what a span of twenty four hours!

Off to the treatment room!!!

I guess someone just transposed two numbers

Advanced Prostate Cancer, chemotherapy, David Emerson, PSA -

So last week I had to go see my General Practitioner and while there I asked him for a print out of the results of the first three PSA tests he performed back in 2004 and early 2005. While two of the number were as I have been reporting for years, there is one that was wrong.

It seems that instead of a high of 219, my PSA actually peaked at 271 in January of 2005.

In the grand scheme of things, this changes nothing, but I just thought I’d report it here and set the record straight.

As for chemo, I’m now fifteen days into this and I feel great. I’m not sure this means anything at this point but, all the little aches and pains that I had been experiencing over the previous few weeks are completely gone.

My next treatment is Monday and we’re hoping all goes well and we continue to pray that I will be able to tolerate this second infusion as well as the first.