Dexamethasone

Ever so brief…..

chemotherapy, David Emerson, Dexamethasone, Dexter, Ironman, PCa -

The good news is my PSA is down another 10% to 31.18
I was hoping to drop into the twenties but I am not complaining!!
Of course that was followed up by another night of no sleep. I woke up at 12:45 after less than two hours of restless sleep. I didn’t fall back asleep until after 4:30 so I started the morning on just three hours of sleep.
I did watch a few more episodes of Dexter (again, very twisted) and I watched Ironman, loved it!
Until next time!

Lucky #7

Advanced Prostate Cancer, chemotherapy, David Emerson, Dexamethasone, The Wire -

Monday I will undergo my 7th chemotherapy treatment. More importantly we will receive the results for another PSA test. This will determine if the first six treatments are working. To date, the overall results of chemo are marginal. My PSA went down about 25%, but it has not dropped measurably since treatment three.

I hold out hope and pray that the second half of this regime is as well tolerated and more successful.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
I finished watching ‘The Wire’ and I must reiterate that it is by far the best crime drama ever produced. Finishing the series was somewhat of a let down, kind of like finishing a good book…you just don’t want it to end. As a viewer it was easy to become attached to the characters. Again, I can’t recommend it enough.

So now I am faced with a dilemma; what to watch during Dex marathons? I better find a solution before Monday night!

Meet my friend Dex

Advanced Prostate Cancer, chemotherapy, David Emerson, Dexamethasone, PSA, taxotere -

A few milestones yesterday, one personal, one not.
Yesterday I had my sixth treatment of chemo. Although this will continue until the end of January, I am now half way through! The good news is my PSA was down, though only slightly, down is not up!
PSA: 39.57
Other good news, my INR (marker to measure blood thinner pharmaceuticals) was finally up to 1.8. The doc increased my dosage once again and we are pretty certain that the injections in my stomach will be a thing of the past next Monday!
On the other hand the steroids (Dex) woke me at 2:15am…..I never went back to sleep! I’ll be dead tired by 9:00pm or so and am hoping I sleep through the night!
The other milestone was yesterday was the first day of fall. As I’ve written here before I’m not a big fan of fall. Winter is the worst. Fall, except for the beauty of the trees for a brief period, represents death in my mind.
As I let the dog out this morning I noticed our elm tree had almost completely changed to purple and had even began it’s annual dumping of leaves into our backyard. The nights are cooler, the days are shorter and it seems that we went from summer to fall overnight.
Three days and counting until the golf tournament. We still have a lot of loose ends to pull together but I am not concerned that it will all come together and the event will go off without a hitch!

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!

What the lack of sleep and large doses of steroids do to your mind!

Advanced Prostate Cancer, David Emerson, Dexamethasone, Dexys Midnight Runners, prostate cancer, The Wire -

This morning I woke at 1:30, just three hours after falling asleep. When I say I woke, I don’t mean I simply rolled over, I was wide awake.

As I began to curse the Dex (Decadron) this one hit wonder, from the early days of MTV came to mind.:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z9bPrUark4
“Come On Eileen” by Dexys Midnight Runners was the biggest-selling British single of 1982. Remember when MTV actually played videos?! It’s funny how your mind works……funny or frightening!

So, what is one to do at 1:30am? I didn’t want to turn on the television and wake Mary or turn on a light to read for the same reason. So I reached for my iPod and began to watch “The Wire” – www.hbo.com/thewire My brother Dan told me about this show months ago but I wanted to start with season 1. In anticipation of last night, I used my Fathers Day gift and purchased the first season from iTunes over the weekend. This is great television; a cop show set in Baltimore that is “gritty, tough. real”!

By 4:30 I had watched the first two and a half episodes and thought I better try to get some sleep. I got two.

…I’ll get by with a little help from my friends.

Advanced Prostate Cancer, chemotherapy, David Emerson, Dexamethasone, Prednisone -

I’m about 18 hours away from chemo infusion #1 and a few hours away from beginning the pre-medication.
This evening I will start taking Dexamethasone and in the morning Prednisone. Both are steroids used to assist the chemo.
The Dex I take 12mg the night before and morning of chemo. Regarding the Prednisone, I will take one 5mg tablet twice a day…., for the duration of the trial, 36 weeks from now.

There is one thing that concerns me; though they are very small dosages, I have visions of being up at 3:00am, unable to sleep and needing to work a few hours later. Dr. Van said we could adjust the Prednisone and just take both pills each morning if I am having trouble sleeping.

Not knowing the road ahead, I got a lot accomplished this weekend. Two rounds of disc golf and today I mowed the lawn and dug up three stumps from some Japanese Yews I cut down last week. I took Brad to the driving range and practice green and now we are off to Mass and a surprise dinner of some sort? I’m not asking and she’s not telling!!!

So now I come to the title, I need your help, your prayers like you’ve never sent them before!

Stay tuned for a complete update tomorrow.