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Posted 6/30/2018 9:29 PM (GMT 0)
Today my wife and I participated in a Pc 5K run-walk, over 500 folks participated. Maybe 50 men with PC.

I had a funny/emotional reaction to being called a survivor. As I reflect on it, it clearly has to do with my inner fear of reoccurrence/more treatment needed. There is no evidence that I need anything, too early in my post-treatment phase. However, as others have shared, the nagging wonder if they "got it all" at times is alive and well.

This is not something that I spend a lot of time thinking about but today at this event it was palpable. During the run, I thought about all the guys I know who are dealing with PC and hoped healing for them.


There were two cool aspects of the event. First Doctors and medical professionals were called down tot eh field and then they asked us with PC to come down and they gave us a hat. The other and most cool [portions was a dash and run where kids ran around the field, they had capes on and some were very young. Really nice event and I encourage all to participate.

Post Edited (Subdenis) : 6/30/2018 4:56:01 PM (GMT-6)

Posted 6/30/2018 9:40 PM (GMT 0)

Hello Subdenis ~

I have also participated in a 5-K event ...

Just as you experienced, it also made me more MINDFUL of all our brothers ...

I'm signed up to go to another one this September ... PROSTATE CANCER AWARENESS MONTH, of course!


Thanks for sharing your experiences with all of us!

CYCLONE ~ Iowa State University
Posted 7/1/2018 1:08 AM (GMT 0)
Subdenis...this is something I think about a lot as well. My wife and I do volunteer work for pancreatic cancer and the organization we work with uses the term "survivors" whenever we're recognizing the folks in that group. But pancreatic cancer has a 5-year survival rate of 9%, so in many ways I feel like those people truly are survivors--they're certainly quite a minority of those diagnosed with the disease. OTOH, I personally don't feel like I'm a cancer survivor since so many of us prostate guys do well. At this point, I think of having prostate cancer like any other illness I had that I subsequently got over.

BTW, sounds like a really cool run/walk that you did!
Posted 7/1/2018 3:56 AM (GMT 0)
I ran that race in NYC . Had to be about 500 or more people running/walking. It was about a year, maybe a bit less, after my surgery. Being entered was a gift from my daughter. She’s run. And finished the NYC marathon. Few times. And she knows I always wanted to run it with her but my knees won’t let me. Not even close. So she entered me and she ran it with me. At the time, recurrence wasn’t even a thought in my mind. How naive.
But I thought a lot that day about how lucky I was to have what I have. My relatively decent health, my family. I still feel that way
Posted 7/1/2018 9:41 AM (GMT 0)
For me, I think it is about balancing hope and reality. Both are future states that I can do nothing about. I can live today, enjoy the gifts of life and be grateful for those in my life.

The run/walk was great and my wife already said let's do it again next year.
Posted 7/1/2018 10:10 AM (GMT 0)
Denis, I also sometimes feel a disconnect at being listed as a survivor. Several years ago, after I had surgery for melanoma I went to the local Relay for Life and got a survivor t-shirt and did the survivor's walk there. It did feel weird being called a survivor next to people who were currently in long term chemo or so weak they had someone pushing them in a wheelchair around the track.

And yet, here we are. We have had a 'big C' diagnosis, we've been treated, our lives are different because of it. We all have a lifetime of checkups to look forward to, even if they are just to verify that it's not coming back. Survivor is a term I'm more comfortable with now than I was then. I'm one of the lucky ones that has had it twice.
Posted 7/1/2018 10:19 PM (GMT 0)
Well said Halbert. Nive hearing from you. Denis
Posted 7/1/2018 10:43 PM (GMT 0)
I have felt like an on-going Survivor ever since my original Stage IV diagnosis. (See Signature info)

In a face-to-face support group recently, the discussion turned to the very many things that one might do to develop an individually-tailored "Survivorship Plan", not just in regards to medical details, but for all potential areas of one's life and continued existence. I may not be Cured, but I can be Healed in many ways. There are also very many other ways to enhance overall meaningfulness and quality of life.

Charles
Posted 7/1/2018 11:13 PM (GMT 0)
Both my wife and I had cancer and I dislike the term cancer survivor. It implies you are something special. Cancer is just one of those things in life, like a major accident, death of a loved one or a divorce. It happened, you adjusted, and then moved on with your life, that's life.
Posted 7/1/2018 11:32 PM (GMT 0)
I did the survivor walk at a Relay for Life. I refused the tee-shirt or the breakfast in the special tent. Honest it felt weird to say I was a "survivor" for something that felt like a routine medical treatment. Yes, it was serious, but so was my gallbladder surgery. I guess I could have died from PC or gallbladder surgery, but if feels weird to say, "I survived gallbladder surgery."

The reason I did the walk was for my wife, who supported me in all this and needed to be reassured that that this was in the past. I never call myself a survivor, but I never contradict others that want to call me that. If it makes them feel better, what the heck, it's just a word.

Peace,
Andrew
Posted 7/1/2018 11:44 PM (GMT 0)
As a Vietnam Vet I appreciate the recognition when I wear my military ball cap but I think about the 60,000 who never came home. Then I feel like they and they only deserve the recognition.
Posted 7/2/2018 5:53 AM (GMT 0)
Great comments...Despite surgery and radiation and more than a decade of treatment, I know my journey is still in progress. I am not a survivor, I'm just moving on down the road. If the term "survivor" is comforting to you or family and friends, it's ok.

We are all survivors. I remember the three years my father bravely stayed "alive" after a traumatic stroke. We all have stories to tell.
Posted 7/2/2018 1:39 PM (GMT 0)
Good to hear others reacting negatively to being called a survivor. I've always had that view but never knew others were of the same mind.
Posted 7/2/2018 2:09 PM (GMT 0)

John_TX said...
As a Vietnam Vet I appreciate the recognition when I wear my military ball cap but I think about the 60,000 who never came home. Then I feel like they and they only deserve the recognition.

Welcome home, John.

I too survived a year in Vietnam. This PCa thing, late in our lives, is just an annoying inconvenience. In the vast majority of cases, it is much more benign than other cancers.

So I don’t call myself a survivor of PCa.....just a lucky survivor of life, so far. wink
Posted 7/2/2018 6:02 PM (GMT 0)
I don’t want to jinx it
Posted 7/2/2018 6:10 PM (GMT 0)
Here's another vote for being no more of a survivor than anyone else who makes it to my age. I've had melanoma, PCa, several way-too-close calls on the highway, a ringside seat for the Tet offensive - yada, yada, yada. I'm pretty sure most people who've been around for six or seven decades has a list of near misses and strokes of luck and their own lengthening list of friends who weren't as lucky. I donate to friends' cancer walks, runs, and bicycle marathons, but other than this forum and a few people I pretty much can count on one hand I keep knowledge of my own medical conditions close to my vest.
Jim
Posted 7/2/2018 7:48 PM (GMT 0)

John T said...
Both my wife and I had cancer and I dislike the term cancer survivor. It implies you are something special. Cancer is just one of those things in life, like a major accident, death of a loved one or a divorce. It happened, you adjusted, and then moved on with your life, that's life.


Well said, I do understand and experienced the sense of survivorship and pride after one phase of life ends and it was very difficult. Take the victory lap and embrace the unknown future called life.
Posted 7/2/2018 8:51 PM (GMT 0)
I'm not convinced that I'm a survivor yet. I don't think I'll qualify as a survivor until about ten years from now. I survived surgery and radiation, however.
Posted 7/3/2018 2:22 PM (GMT 0)
I'll accept that I'm a cancer survivor, embrace that term. I had cancer. I'm surviving. Some say you're a cancer survivor the moment you're diagnosed, and will be until you're gone. Just because the marks on my body and my psyche aren't very visible (at least in polite society), doesn't mean they aren't there. My life has been significantly affected by it.

It's all just semantics anyway. If you derive comfort, strength, or peace from accepting the term, or rejecting the term, do what makes you feel best. It just doesn't matter.
Posted 7/3/2018 2:34 PM (GMT 0)

Redwing57 said...
.....It just doesn't matter.

Yep....much ado about nothing, IMHO idea
Posted 7/3/2018 10:09 PM (GMT 0)
When people ask me I just say I am out of treatment and at a stage known as "NED or no evidence of disease" and should know in about a year or so whether or not I am in remission. Maybe in the year 2020 I'll start thinking of myself as a survivor. Til then I am still a fighter.
Posted 7/4/2018 5:03 PM (GMT 0)
I consider myself a survivor. I'll be a survivor until I'm not, at which point I won't care anymore. I will die of PCa, or if from something else medical, probably caused by all the treatments (heart attack, stroke, whatever).

Being on permanent chemo, there is no escaping for more than a few hours at a time. But that's what I've been dealt, and I deal with it.

Pick a term, or don't. Life is a terminal condition. Nobody gets out alive. Once that is sorted out in your head, the rest is a bonus.
Posted 7/4/2018 10:43 PM (GMT 0)
My view of a survivor is someone who has made it through an event and it’s done. So I feel that I’m not a cancer survivor and never will be. But, I have survived so far.
Posted 7/4/2018 11:48 PM (GMT 0)
Don't know if it is true...but I was told that the term "cancer survivor" was coined by the American Cancer Society to collect more money...
Posted 7/5/2018 12:32 AM (GMT 0)

lifeguyd said...
Don't know if it is true...but I was told that the term "cancer survivor" was coined by the American Cancer Society to collect more money...


My wife danced with breast cancer for a long time and absolutely hated the Komen race for the cure scam, for that reason. Companies have no hesitation in using sick, children, or animal's to make a buck.
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