I’m sure many of you have seen this:
Susan Boyle
If this didn’t make you laugh, cry, cheer, I’m not sure what would.
As I watched this it made me thinkabout how sad it is that we are such a judgemental society. Yours truly included.
I know this has nothing to do with Prostate Cancer however, I wish this woman the best and hope she goes on to become a big, big star!!
We made it home safely on Friday, but not in a timely manner. Southwest Airlines, who I usually find to be reliable, did an absolutely miserable job of getting of us home. I’ll forgo the details, but it involved delays, missed connections and arriving home six hours late.
I played disc golf yesterday and today with the gang. I really need them and appreciate them in my life. I am trying my best to take the doctor’s words to heart and just get on with my life. Easier said than done!
Today is about the Lord and family and now relaxation with just Mary and Brad – this I also need!
Happy Easter everyone, peace be with you all.
The taste of saline was strong, stronger than I remembered. It had been awhile. The tears themselves started from laughter and evolved to tears of sorrow.
Mary and I watch “Marley & Me” last night here in Houston. I won’t talk much about the movie so as not to spoil it for those of you who may not have seen it yet, however, it was a great movie. It won’t win any awards mind you, but for those of us with dogs, and Labradors to be specific, the reality is spot on. As the movie evolved on the screen the tears of laughter turned to tears of sorrow. It was not just about the fate of the dog, but the thoughts of death itself.
It all hit too close to home for me.
It was the culmination of the day’s events, and the fact that it is Holy Week.
Yesterday we spent the day at MD Anderson Hospital in Houston. Through a few contacts we were able to secure an appointment with the Chair of the Genitourological department, who I will refer to as Dr. L. More on him later, but in a nut shell, what an incredible doctor, man, care giver.
After checking in at 10:00am and going through the paper work process we headed to the lab so the vampires could extract seven vials of my blood. The lab area was a stark shot of reality; packed with cancer patients in various stages of treatement. From wide eyed newly diagnosed patients to those poor souls that chemo has obviously ravaged. Silent Hail Marys streamed through my concious thoughts as we waited.
After the finishing up at the lab, we ate lunchand then returned to the seventh floor to wait for our 1:00pm appointment with Dr. L. As is typically the case, we did not follow the planned schedule… we actually met with the doctor at 2:15pm. The wait was a much different experience. Much of the time was spent completing a lengthy review and clarification of my status, x-rays and scans with his nurse practitioner, so the hour flew by.
Our time with the doctor was approximately thirty minutes, no more. The thirty minutes were, for the lack of a better term, incredible. After four years, we think we know a lot about prostate cancer, but we learned more in that thirty minutes than most of the last four years combined. In this case it was specific to me, but it really opened, or re-opened my eyes to my current status.
Since I’ve rambled quite a bit, here is the bottom line – his recommendation? Do ‘nothing’ for now. On the one hand, this is fantastic, on the other, as someone with a demon called cancer living inside him, doing ‘nothing’ is one hard pill to swallow. After listening to and letting his recommedation sink in, it really makes sense. The highlights are this; the bone tumors are ‘attached’ to the bone, not attacking or destroying from within the bone. Two, chemo is still working, we need to allow it to complete it’s full course before we jump into the next treatment. The doctor advised us to approach our treatment strategy as one would any chronic illness. To fully consider my symptoms and current condition when making treatment decisions and making sure we reap the full benefits of each treatment. He was quite complementary regarding how we and our doctors have managed my case to date. So we return to Kansas City with orders to watch a few new blood markers because given my condition, the PSA level should not be the exclusive marker to track the activity of the cancer cells. Details of the new markers will be shared in a future blog.
The doctor also provided a lot of hope for the future. There a number of drugs in clinical trials that are or may become available when I may need them in the months and years ahead. It is the current research and clinical trials that reinforces our hope.
Our experience with MD Anderson this time was so different than in 2005. 180 degrees different and in a wonderful way. The compassion, and strategic approach that the staff shared with us was exceptional. Primarily, we credit this experience to Dr. L and his staff. The other factor is that Mary and I have matured in our knowledge and approach to managing this beast called prostate cancer.
Here’s the story from Bloomberg.
Interesting note, the research was funded via the Prostate Cancer Foundation. Perhaps
FLHW.org is doing some good!
Second item is from another, more prominent PCa blogger. I may have mentioned him here before? Dana Jennings, (a New York Times editor writes each week about coping with an aggressive form of prostate cancer) His latest blog is here. His words say so much better was I was trying to get across at the end of my last blog.
Stay tuned, more from the road…..
After receiving a call on Wednesday confirming our appointment in Houston, we scrambled to make the logistical arrangements.
With just 7 days to line everything up, we were scrambling to find airfare that didn’t cost us over $1,000!! As he has in the past a very dear friend stepped up with a few frequent flyer certificates. The are some people that can not be thanked enough, he is one!
So now I find my mental state to be somewhat the same as four years ago (see this post). I really hope everything we went through to get this appointment pays off. The doctor we are seeing is the Chair of the Genitourinary department at MD Anderson. He is an extremely accomplished oncologist. We are hoping and praying that he will have insight into a treatment or a trial that fits my case better than others we know about. I write this with extreme caution, as I don’t want to get my hopes to high.
In addition, Mary and I ever so slightly disagree on parts of the trip. I personally am ready to try just about anything beyond phase three, placebo controlled trials, She wants to proceed perhaps a little more cautiously. She is concerned about compromising my current quality of life. I’m tired of caution and feel our approach over the last four years have been pretty conservative. As always, we’ll take it all in, discuss and come to a decision that we both believe is best.
I know I have said this repeatedly, but at times I can’t believe how much I have changed. When I read the post I linked to above, I also read all the posts from April 2005. In some ways the words sound like someone else wrote them. It seems a lifetime ago. So much has changed, yet one crucial thing remains, I still have advanced, non-curable prostate cancer.
It’s spring in Kansas City and I love it. I didn’t have to look too far over the past two days to appreciate this; the red bud trees are blooming, spring flowers are everywhere and the sound of lawn mowers filled the air. I look forward to rose blooms, moon flowers, fresh garden vegetables and cool spring nights sleeping with the windows ajar. The sound of trains throughout the night and birds in the morning. For me, it’s THE time of year!
It’s also Holy Week. With that comes so many reminders of the sacrifices that were made for each and every one of us. I plan to make time this week to further reflect on what this means to me and how my faith had gotten me though the last four years.
First and foremost, PSA: 36.36, down a fraction from last month.
Mary and I were famished at that point so I agree to have lunch with her at the Blue Koi. The history on the Blue Koi is this; it was one of our favorite places to eat until last summer. We would go there for lunch everytime I had treatment or doctor appointments. However, after about my third or fourth chemo treatment, I couldn’t eat it anymore. It tasted horrible. It was a shame that the one thing chemo had to ruin was my ability to eat at one of our favorite places.
So yesterday we returned for the first time since last summer. The result? All is well, it was wonderful, again!
After lunch I returned home and finished some work for a few hours before my next appointment, my massage. Mary had given this to me for my birthday back in January. This was only the second time I had a massage. Te first was over two years ago in Tucson. This time it was quite a bit longer, but I have to tell you, the 90 minutes went by like five! Bottom line, I slept like a baby and am feeling good today!
With the beginning of Spring and the end of March came a nice little reminder from Mother Nature as to who’s in charge! We received a late season snow storm yesterday that delivered about 5 inches of snow on our house. It was very pretty to wake to this morning, but rather heavy to shovel from the driveway.
Tomorrow is my four week appointment with Dr. V, as well as a Lupron shot and Zometa infusion. I am rather concerned about my PSA, being that my sole treatment right now is Lupron. It has been two months since my last chemo treatment. Where did the time go?
Overall, I am still feeling very good. I worked out four mornings last week, I was able to shovel the driveway this morning and even played disc golf again yesterday morning before the snow arrived. I have been experiencing mild pain in both knees throughout the day. Nothing real bad, in fact I have yet to take Advil to deal with the pain. I’m not sure of the connection, but this all started after I weaned myself from the daily steroids I was taking until about two weeks ago. I was taking the prednisone during the chemo regimen. I had to slowly withdraw over two weeks. We definitely will discuss with Dr. V tomorrow.
At this point MD Anderson has received my records and we are expecting a call early this coming week to begin the scheduling process.
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A few non-David health related updates:
On May 9th we will be holding the 2nd Annual FLHW Disc Golf Tournament. We were fortunate enough this year to gain access to one of Kansas City’s newest private courses. A wonderfully generous man built the course for the express purpose of providing non-profit foundations an alternative venue for fund raising events in Kansas City. I recently discovered that the course will also be used for this summer’s World Disc Golf Championship being held here in KC. We are hoping that this might attract a few more teams that are looking for ways to get on and practice before this summer’s major event.
The man who owns the property and course is the owner of Suburban Lawn and Garden. He does some unbelievably philanthropic things here in Kansas City. As we began to plan the disc golf event he extended an offer for a new program at the greenhouse and garden center at 135th and Wornall. Each Friday, for six consecutive weeks, a different charity will receive 10% of all sales between 5 and 8 pm. Also, during the week leading up to the event the charity will be able provide information about their charity to Suburban’s customers. FLHW has secured Friday, June 5th! We are very pleased that will give us yet another opportunity to promote the importance of early detection for prostate cancer and make men and women more aware of this disease that kills 28,000 men annually. More details regarding this event will be forthcoming as the date approaches.
Last year at this time we were returning from Spring Break in Florida. It was at this time when I received the news of the passing of one of our PCa brothers, Wes Witcher (this is the post I wrote)
Today, I received the above from Sheri. It reminded my of both how fast time is passing and exactly how blessed I am.
To Sheri, Taylor and Haley may God’as grace continue to bless you all and may peace always be with you.
Hail Mary,
Full of Grace,
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit
of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary,
Mother of God,
pray for us sinners now,
and at the hour of death.
Amen.
Spring found KC in a big way! The weather since last weekend has been wonderful, and we couldn’t have asked for better timing since we stayed home for Spring Break!
Friday it was 70 degrees, so Gary and I skipped out of work at 3 in order to enjoy the weather and get in a quick round of disc golf.
We decided to play a course in Olathe, KS that we don’t go to very often. In the past I found the trees tended to be in the way, misplaced is a better description.
It seems in the past year they’ve done a lot of trimming, I really like the course now. Could be the trimming, or the fact I really took it to Gary. Sorry G, but I’ve only beat you a few times, and to take you by eight strokes was pretty darn cool!
Saturday it was warm again but windy. We decided to play at Wyandotte County Park as a warm up for a tournament on Sunday. There were nine of us and because the course is so long, we broke into three groups. I thought I shot horribly, but the wind was unkind to everyone and I was only beaten by three strokes, by Joe of course!
So Sunday rolls around and in additional to losing an hour of sleep, we lost any semblance of good weather. When we arrived at 8:30 the wind was howling at a steady 20mph with gusts over 30. In addition, the temperature was 45, at the most. It was a LONG day and in the end, I finished 5th out of 11 players in my division. It was fun and I met a few new players that promised to play in our FLHW Disc Golf Tournament on May 9th.
Monday I woke up a little stiff, but by this morning I was back to normal.
After all that, I just checked the forecast and it looks like the weekend is looking up!!!
