ADT and SRT Journey Part 3

Richard.. Good number to celebrate on Memorial day!!

Larry

Noggin, congrats on taking your last casodex pill! My last one will be taken on August 18th and like you that will be a happy day for me too!

Mike

Happy Memorial Day all.
And thank you to all who have served.

Congrats SP - good numbers - as RobLee posted, we all know they are artificial at this point, but it could be worse.

Cheers!

Rob

Yes, big congrats to those who are now nearing the end of treatments (hopefully) and those with low numbers. My Memorial Day greeting was posted earlier in the "formerMarine welcome" thread. John_TX, very similar experience and timeline here. I lived in a bomb shelter for three years and saw no action but lost some friends.

My Lupron brain has a hard time remembering who's who on here, which is probably the WORST side effect of extended HT. The other SE's are an annoyance, a nuisance. But watching my own presence of mind deteriorate over time is most disturbing, and I don't know how much to attribute to age or HT or is it something else growing inside me?

My wife also has "chemo brain" and we joke about each other's foibles. We try to keep it light, as it's so easy to descend down into the dark well. We are both much relieved that we have both come out of cancer victorious, so far, and recognize that it certainly could have gone much worse. And I admire those here on this board and others, who have received the worst news and managed to accept it graciously and continue to put one foot in front of the other, and to do so with dignity (and having some idea just how difficult that must be).

RobLee said...
...John_TX, very similar experience and timeline here. I lived in a bomb shelter for three years and saw no action but lost some friends.

My Lupron brain has a hard time remembering who's who on here, which is probably the WORST side effect of extended HT. The other SE's are an annoyance, a nuisance. ....

I was on the ground floor of an open bay two story barracks, probably E4 and lower got the upstairs. We had concrete blast barriers between barracks and flack vests were always handy. As a special treat, our squadron barracks were right across from the Tan Son Nhut aircraft parking aprons. Nothing like the aroma of JP4 (jet fuel) wafting through your mosquito netting at lights out . There were rocket attacks before I arrived in country and none while I was there, after I left there were some nuisance attacks. I have two friends that were helicopter pilots there, both have two Purple Hearts.

You guys on Lupron deserve a special blessing - I hated its side effects. Maybe the body gets somewhat used to it with longer term Lupron, I pray I'll never need to find out.

John_TX said...
There were rocket attacks before I arrived in country and none while I was there, after I left there were some nuisance attacks.

Sorry John, I didn't mean to steal anyone's thunder or come off as a poser, but I never saw southeast Asia.
But I did graduate just after Tet and was drafted in the first lottery in '69. For me 'Nam was a real possibility. I'm sure that even "light duty" there was still a hellhole.

No, I was attached to NATO and deplayed to your not-so-typical assignment, attending comm gear along with several zoomies and swabbies. And there I was eventually promoted to E6 and watched as we pulled out of Vietnam, and all my friends got short and went back to the world.

Similar timeline and circumstances, but another of life's near misses... like PCa, it's a story I have lived to tell, but which can only be appreciated by those who've been there.

RobLee said...
Sorry John, I didn't mean to steal anyone's thunder or come off as a poser, but I never saw southeast Asia.
But I did graduate just after Tet and was drafted in the first lottery in '69. For me 'Nam was a real possibility. I'm sure that even "light duty" there was still a hellhole....

I'm glad you weren't there but thanks for serving wherever you were stationed. Tan Son Nut Air Base was attacked during Tet and then "mini"-Tet. about 200 VCs stormed the base with rockets firing, one of the perimeter sentry posts was hit and I think five or six of the guys there were killed, one survived. 160 KIA on the base. None of the Air Police (we called them apes) at that time were equipped with heavy weapons which was a tragedy. After that attack they up-gunned with 50 cal and some armored vehicles.

My first permanent duty station out of tech school was Kindly AB, Bermuda so I started in a great place and ended in a lousy place.

Saipan - hope the puppy does okay!

So many thngs to comment on. SP, similar story with an abandoned cat who after 6 months with us is charming and in charge.

Thanks all for your service. Interesting and maybe sad to see how few veterans there are. I was USAF, 1966-71, did not get to SEA but people I worked with created a radar site at Monkey Mountain near Danang. Spent two years in Iran for O/S tour. John_Tx, great place that — visited Bermuda often until they banned same-sex marriage (sorry for the politics). RobLee, hope it was a good tour even if you stayed in longer.

Also incidental thyroid nodule found on PET/CT scan is benign, I learned today after worrying for five days after biopsy. Also another full blood work up came out in the middle of the ranges for everything.

And the simulation at MSKCC was a piece of cake, even though I had to wait with the plaster mold hardening for an extra 15 minutes while waiting for my bladder to fill enough (exactly 16 ounces of water exactly one hour before treatment, they said).

Radiation starts 2 July for 40 sessions, 72 Gy.

Saipan Paradise said...

John_TX said...
Saipan - hope the puppy does okay!

Got an excellent report on pup a few hours ago from Mrs Paradise. No more diarrhea, pup is eating like there’s no tomorrow, skin sores healing. She (pup, not wife) was found abandoned at the side of the road on Thursday. Covered in ticks — Mrs P and the friend who found her spent 2 hours de-ticking her that night. Vet estimates she’s 4 weeks old but she weighed only 1 lb. Pooped a pile of hookworms. He de-wormed her and put her on antibiotics. Looks like she’s gonna pull through. Wish I could post pics here, she’s cute as a button.

Oh my, poor puppy. You are are a hero for taking care of the helpless! We have four barn cats, two house cats, a herding dog and a pet axis deer (and antelope.)Vet bills get expensive around here.

Progressing - good luck with the radiation, it's more of an endurance issue than anything else. The first few sessions consists of figuring out the protocol, then it becomes a routine.

I just finished up HT And RT and got my fist undectectable psa test a month ago,I need to lose 50 pds, will drinking apple cider vinegar and ginger affect my future psa test?

Larry, what kind of ginger? Only available in Wisconsin?

Thanks Larry,I put on about 30 pds,I need to loes another 20 pds,theres this drink my daugther used called Bragg organic apple cider vinegar drink, it comes with different mixtures, she lost a ton of weight by just drinking a bottle a day and walkig, guess ill get the ginger mixture and do a lot of walking and see where the pds go.