Seidman Cancer Center, cont'd.

Seidman Cancer Center
Orange Village, Ohio

Tuesday, October 8, 2019

Tomorrow morning Joyce and I will drive back up to Seidman Cancer Center for my ga-jillionth appointment with my oncologist (and my continual joy dealing with I-271). As I've posted here before, my dealings with prostate cancer began almost exactly fifteen years ago when my family doctor told me, in my annual physical, that she'd "felt something" that I ought to have checked out. I did. And ... I've told the story many times ...

This will be, in some ways, a "normal" appointment for me--quarterly--capped off with my quarterly injection of Trelstar, a drug that suppresses testosterone, the "food" of prostate cancer; it's a drug with a number of unpleasant side-effects (which I have written about here before ... I don't experience all the dire (!) ones, thank goodness ...interested in more? here's a link about them).

Two things have happened since I last saw my oncologist: (1) I've had a nuclear bone scan (oh, am I getting familiar with those!) to see if there's any new "hot spot" that might need some attention since my last radiation treatments (more than a year ago) dealt with one of my naughty vertebrae. (2) My most recent PSA test (Prostate Specific Antigen) indicates a slight reversal in fortune. Since my immunotherapy sessions and since the radiation, my PSA had fallen rather steadily, even dramatically, as the chart below indicates.

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

Since a Cleveland Clinic surgeon removed my prostate gland in June 2005, I should have no measurable PSA at all, but (as I've said here numerous times before) prostate cancer also produces it, and in this case, the more is definitely not the merrier.

So ... I will see how concerned my oncologist is about this ... uptick. I mean, it's still below 1 (very good), but it's also more than doubled between July and September. Is that significant? I'll let you know later on when I return.

So ... more news tomorrow when I will supplement this post ...


To be continued ...


Wednesday, October 9, 12:55 p.m.

We got back home from Seidman about 12:15 and have just had lunch. And I am recovering from three different "puncture wounds": (1) my Trelstar injection in my, uh, "hip"; (2) an Xgeva (bone strength) shot in my right arm (quad) (a shot I did not know was coming today); (3) a blood draw taken from the back of my left hand (the veins in my arms were hiding today), a blood draw I did not know I would be getting, but my doctor wants to double-check something: My liver number was a little off-kilter last time. Wants to make sure.

So ... bandages on my butt, my arm, my hand. Quite a special day.

The actual exam by was oncologist was encouraging. He likes my PSA below 1.00; he likes my recent bone scan, which, he says, shows that the tumors the last scan had shown are "dead or dying." He used the word "remission" for the first time today. It's a word I think I like. A lot.

All that--the meeting with him--lasted, oh, five to seven minutes. Then he was out of there, and about an hour and a half ensued: waiting for the shots, waiting for my turn with the phlebotomist, and--most time-consuming of all?--scheduling my next appointments and events.

(BTW: While I was typing "time-consuming," I inadvertently typed "time-cursing"; are you smiling, Dr. Freud?)

In the next few months I'll be "enjoying" the following: another Trelstar injection, another Xgeva injection, another PSA test, a CT scan (abdomen), another nuclear bone scan. There may be more--I'm too much of a Debbie Downer right now to go check my calendar.

But I should say: While I was sitting there with the woman doing my (complicated) scheduling, while I was sitting there feeling somewhat sorry for myself, I heard, in the next stall, a man tell his scheduler that he needed to get a brain MRI. Is there a quicker way to suddenly feel like a jerk?

And speaking of jerks ... I-271 today was heavily populated with them. I'm beginning to think that impatience is the most prominent trait in contemporary Americans--especially American drivers. I came close to flipping off one guy, but my hand was still bandaged, so, you know ...? I just muttered the appropriate words, those two Magic Words that are kind of redundant when you flip someone off.

Anyway, I'm grateful for the good news today, darkened by all that is upcoming, relieved that I was not alone, for Joyce, as she has been for the past half-century, was at my side, her hand on mine.

And now I will head upstairs for a nap and hope that Morpheus will (a) find me, (b) transform my mood.