It's been one year today that I received that call. You know "THAT CALL". It's the call none of us ever wanted to get. We never will forget the sound of that voice and those words. We know just exactly where we were and what time it was. For me I will never forget how numb I felt.
Numb...the exact word to express what I was feeling at that moment in time.
Fear wasn't to far around the corner. Did he say and keep saying, "gleason 9" over and over like 6 times.
I had done enough research to know....that wasn't good.
After pacing back and forth across the den (I was at home alone) and saying out loud "this can't be true, this can't be true... NO, NO,NO....and wondering..... how was I going to tell my wife. Should I call? Should I go to her job? Should I call, should I go to her job.
I called........ and from that point on my wife and I and my children and family have been on this journey that we never asked for. Our life changed forever.
This last year has been a whirl wind. (more a tornado). I remember saying " I just want it out. That's it... it's coming out. Little did I know at that time what was really going to happen.
I didn't have it out....
I wasn't in as much control as I though I was. The disease had other plans and I at times....ok many times.... I felt powerless. I kept getting these road blocks over and over. I'd settle on one treatment only to be side tracked. I wasn't a good candidate for surgery. I wasn't a good candidate for LDR brachy. Was I only going to get IMRT+HT?....Gleason 9 people!... We should be hitting this thing with everything.
Then I saw a post that Calijr was going in for chemo.
JR is about
a year ahead of me and we had started a dialogue out side HW . (E-mail) I thought ... Hey.. that is for me! That will be another hammer to hit this thing with. That hammer that was taken from me. I was excited. I approached my MO with the NCCN guidelines for treatment of High Risk PC confined. There it was and I went for it.
Chemo wasn't a breeze for me. It was tough. I had 4 cycles 3 wks apart. By the 3rd cycle I developed chemo toxicity and had 2 nights stay in the hospital. But nothing was going to stop me from having that 4th cycle....nothing! No more road blocks for me.
By the end of chemo ,the first week of April I had lost most of the hair on my body,my taste was screwed up. I had severe neuropathy in my hands and feet. I started losing my toe nails. My chemo brain was pretty bad. I had weeping eyes from tear ducts being messed up and I had tinnitus in my left ear. I looked and felt half dead, yet I worked through all of it. IMRT+HT+Chemo. Oh... and just to make things interesting I had 2 surgical procedures on my small intestine to remove a large tumor. Still have to go back to Seattle so they can get the rest of it out this fall.
Now 2 months since my last cycle I still have the neuropathy in hands and feet...chemo brain is about
the same and the ringing in my ear is still there.
The good news is my edema that was so bad a year ago has pretty much cleared up. I've lost 30 lbs and my PSA is <0.01. Can't beat that!
What I know today that I didn't know when first Dx'd is that there are many things that can be done these days to treat PCa. I'm happy today because we are going in the right direction. I'm happy that I am out on the other side of the tough stuff. I'll have my last 4 month Lupron shot mid Dec. so that should put me right about
this same time next year and I will be watching for my T to come back.
Thank you to all that have contributed to my recovery. Many, many of you don't even know that you helped me. Some do. I hang around almost every day to read posts and once in awhile make a comment or 2. Without this forum... I don't what I'd be facing right now. More than likely it wouldn't be as good as it is now.
Today ..... I am much more at ease. Life has a way of putting me in my place. I have much more compassion and I have a lot less anger. And that fear that started this journey 12 months ago...it has pretty much left me for now. I can rest assured that this cancer is not going to kill me today. And that is all I have.
Tomorrow?......It may be different. Who knows. Not me... No need to stress it.....ya right!!!
Battle On Brothers!!!
The Artist One - Mark
