David’s Blog

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!

Ready, set, 1, 2, 3 go!

Advanced Prostate Cancer, cancer budget, David Emerson, NCI -

Monday is treatment number three already. One and two have been, for the lack of a better term, a piece of cake! I have run into a number of people that, based on their reaction, are stunned I’m in the midst of chemo. Not sure what to say? We still have a long road ahead of us, but so far….so good.

The next thing I have to say might be a little controversial, but here goes anyway. I have tried to avoid topics such as this, but this one has been bothering me for quite some time. Remember, it’s my blog, I started this and continue it to share what I’m thinking, and what I am going through. Please read the following, agree, disagree…if nothing else just think about it for a minute.

On May 30, 2007, President Bush announced his proposal to double America’s initial commitment and provide an additional $30 billion to combat global HIV/AIDS over the next five years.

$30 Billion dollars! What about Americans dealing with cancer, cancer of all kinds?
In 1997 1.4M Americans were diagnosed with cancer. This was in addition to the millions who were already living with the disease, including yours truly.

The total proposed 2009 budget for the National Cancer Institute is just over $6 Billion and our government leaders send an equal amount, every year, for the next five years overseas.

That is all I have to say, I’m not going to present an argument of AIDS vs. Cancer, etc. I just wanted to present this one little position and ask you to think about it.

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!

…is on my side…..yes it is.

Advanced Prostate Cancer, David Emerson, Rolling Stones, Time is on my side -

Today at Mass something reminded me of a stream of consciousness that I experienced the other night while trying to get back to sleep. At some point this blog turned into more of a diary of my life and less of what’s going on within me as I battle Advanced Prostate Cancer. I spend a lot of time writing about disc golf, music, books, movies, etc. and it has been a long time since I let you in my head.

So here we go:

I’m one week into my second treatment of chemotherapy. This one has actually been easier on me than the first. No flu like symptoms this past weekend… it was quite unremarkable (a radiology term I can’t believe I just used!). I feel better than I have in months and yet it scares me…What if my PSA number doesn’t come down? I’m not in pain, in fact it’s just the opposite, but I can’t help but wonder what is actually going on inside of me.

I guess I shouldn’t doubt or question, it’s way too early, but this is my blog and I have had that thought a few times recently. I continue to pray, a lot! I pray for guidance, a cure and peace and comfort for Mary and my family. I talk to God a lot at night. Sometimes I sneak in a request for a cure but I try not to push things, he’s a little busy and I’m just one mortal man.

Time is what I ask for the most. Time for Brad to drive and graduate and go to college. Time for Meg to get married and graduate from college herself. Time for Mary and I to grow old together……or at least just a little older. I just couldn’t get though this without one musical reference. This Stones song just came to mind; “Time, time, time is on my side…yes it is”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And so there it is….short, not necessarily sweet, but right to the point.

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.

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.

A creative break

Advanced Prostate Cancer, David Emerson, word clouds, wordle -

I found this website; http://wordle.net/
It allows you to create these images called “word clouds”
So I took most of the keywords from my blog and created the following (click to enlarge).

The size and placement of words is completley random. Where some things were placed is at least ironic. For example, there is chemotherapy all by itself. Prostate and Cancer are the two largest words? Ironic and spooky!

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