Colorado

Looking West

Advanced Prostate Cancer, bone scan, chemotherapy, Colorado, CT scan, David Emerson, Lake of the Ozarks -

A few medical updates after Monday.

I / we were not real comfortable waiting an additional week to start chemo (until June 16th).
Tuesday, Mary did the leg work, called the doctor’s office and inquired if if there was anything we could do in the next four weeks, or if there were any alternatives/options.

Yesterday they called back with some encouraging news. I will start treatments on the 9th as originally planned! This means on the 3rd I will have to spend most of the day at the hospital getting; a chest x-ray, a C/T scan and full body bone scan. This will mark the 6th set of the latter two tests. I imagine I might begin to glow at night, as they have to inject me with low-dose radiation each time they do a bone scan.

These last three weeks have been draining. Not only are the days longer, but the weeks seem to drag on and on. I never thought I would look forward to starting chemo. It’s just this; we made a decision, let’s get on with it.

Another somewhat stressful aspect is that we can’t really plan our summer. We wanted to take Brad to Colorado, I was going to take him camping, a trip to the lake, a weekend at my brother’s property, a trip to see my dad in St. Louis, and the annual get together with my sister from Ohio. Well all of that is currently in limbo. The whole chemo process could go according to plan; very few side effects, little fatigue, white and red cell counts stay high or near normal etc. but because we don’t know, we have to be careful not to plan too far ahead.

I pray for results like I had with Ketoconizal and other medications. I consistently responded well to previous treatments. Our hope is that the chemotherapy will get the cancer under control, my PSA will decrease, we can follow it up with other meds to keep it under control and resume a somewhat normal lifestyle for years to come. We’ll see.

I thank God daily for such a loving wife and wonderful, understanding son. I know he’ll love Colorado, when we finally get there……

1 week down………

Advanced Prostate Cancer, Colorado, Lance Armstrong, VoIP -

I met several former co-workers after work last night. About 8 years ago we all worked together for 2-3 years. It was a very cool project at the time, we were working on technology that is just now becoming mainstream (Voice Over IP). There was a period of about 2-3 weeks where we were putting in 16+ hour days, eating a lot of take-out and arguing with vendors almost endlessly. In the end it all worked out. We also benefited from it on a personal level by establishing some life long friendships. Last night was fun and before we all knew it three hours has slipped by, we’ll have to do it again soon.

The weather in KC is supposed to beautiful this weekend, time for a little spring yard work perhaps! Also, we are having lunch with my uncle from Colorado (who is traveling thru town) and brunch on Sunday with a friend of my dads and the family, who is in town for a convention, it will be very busy weekend!

A friend at work gave me the Lance Armstrong book, “It’s not about the Bike”. I started reading it the other night and what he went through was amazing. In the course of about 10 days he went from being healthy, to finding out he had cancer, to having part of his manhood surgically removed, to brain surgery and finally he started intense chemotherapy – all that in the span of less than two weeks. Remarkable! I’m only about halfway through – it’s a good book and I’d recommend it to any of you. But after reading it, it begs the question, “would you rather just be hit with cancer and get it on with the “cure” like Lance? Or would you rather go through this, long, drawn out process like me?” At this point I’m searching for an answer?