Wednesday, September 11
This morning I began the next round of Whatever Will Be in the
treatment of my metastatic prostate cancer. Joyce and I drove up to Seidman
Cancer Center in Beachwood, Ohio—about a half-hour’s drive today: I-271 was
tolerable, not always the case.
I was due for 10:30 blood draws: (1) my routine PSA test (Prostate
Specific Antigen) and (2) some more comprehensive blood tests to make sure it
was all right to administer my bi-monthly injection of Xgeva (pronounced
ex-GEE-vuh), a drug that promotes bone strength—necessary because another
heavy-duty drug I’m on, Trelstar, designed to zap testosterone (the “food” of
prostate cancer), also weakens bone strength. So … I take substantial doses of
calcium/Vitamin D every day—and get the bi-monthly Xgeva shot. Which hurts more
than your average injection, partly because the drug is pretty cold when it
enters the body. And the body notices. And whimpers.
As for the PSA test? As I’ve written here before, I have no prostate
gland (removed in June 2005 in the first fruitless attempt to stop the
cancer—it was too late: It had spread already). But prostate cancer also
produces PSA, so if I’ve got a substantial PSA, then I’ve got a … problem.
Some treatments have retarded my cancer. Two different rounds of
radiation therapy. Trelstar. And immunotherapy—a process whereby, in three
different sessions, technicians removed T-cells from my blood, sent them to
Atlanta to be “energized” with a cancer-fighting drug, then re-infused them.
Except for the 2005 surgery, the immunotherapy was the least “fun” of all my
treatments.
Anyway, my bloodwork for the Xgeva was fine, so I got the shot—got to
think Ouch! (Didn’t dare utter it: gotta be a man.)
I’ll have to wait for my quarterly PSA result. It’s been falling
recently (radiation, immunotherapy, as I said), so I’ll be expecting it to
begin to rise again one of these times. I’m not cured (as of now, I can’t be);
I’m just “on hold.”
BTW: The two phlebotomists I routinely see—one at Seidman, the other
here at the local University Hospitals facility in Hudson—are wonderful.
Although my craven veins like to hide, these two professionals rarely have to
stick me more than once. Rarely leave more than the faintest trace behind.
And, oh, we were home in time for lunch.
Thursday, September 12
And now the waiting for test results. I try not to check the portal (Follow My Health) too
often because I’ve tried, for more than fourteen years now,
to avoid letting cancer-thoughts be dominant in my life. (Not yet, anyway.)
Constant worry, I’ve learned, prevents me from doing/enjoying other things I
love, and so I try to suppress the worry.
And one of the best techniques that work for me? Writing about it. It
seems I’m able in some wacky way to transfer to the screen/page most of my
worry. It’s out. For the most part. Not permanently gone—but on spring break.
No PSA result appeared today on the portal.
Friday, September 13
I checked throughout the morning. No result. Nothing, either, the rest
of the day …
Saturday, September 15
All day. No news. Until about supper. We were finishing up, talking,
and I thought I’d check, you know, one more time.
And this time there was a green dot beside “results”; I knew what that
meant.
To check or not to check? That is the question …
But I had to. And so I did …
Two months ago my PSA was 0.29, the lowest it’s been in a long time,
due, thinks my oncologist, to the immunotherapy and the (fairly) recent
radiation.
6 August 2018 20.13
12 September 2018 11.98
16 October 2018 3.36
9 November 2018 1.93
15 January 2019 1.07
18 April 2019 0.33
10 July 2019 0.29
11 September 2019 0.63
As the chart shows, it had peaked a little over a year ago—August
2018—and then had begun its steady decline.
But as you can also see on the chart, my recent score—for the first
time in a year—has increased. I’m still less than 1 (which is a comforting thing),
but what I don’t know is this: Have I begun yet another climb? Another climb
that will result in even further treatments of various sorts?
The answer, of course, is “probably.” All my oncologist can do, for
now, is try to retard the damn thing’s growth until “they” find a cure. And
“they,” you realize, are my best hope.
Well, "they" and the comfort of Joyce, whose touch, in many ways, can heal.
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