7 Months to the day

Hey David,


Good on you for remaining focused and for perserverance throughout your medical ordeal. You have the unfortunate task of putting up with problems that few of of expected or knew about and you have done it with grace and courage.



I sincerely hope that the pain remains tolerable during the healing period and that the future holds some positive steps in getting you back to normal continence. Although I have been quiet lately, I am always thinking about your journey and am standing beside you on each step that you take.



Keep well,

Regards,

Bill

Sounds very positive, I hope this one goes well.
Talking about driving, I have figured out where every friendly toilet is on the road back from the IGRT clinic. My weekly grocery bill has not changed, but the average ampount is way down - hate to stop at a store, use the facilities, and then not buy anything.

I think that is the problem with a lot of the treatments - unless they go badly, or you live to 100 without a PSA rise, you never will know if they worked.

I'm seeing that now - the ins. co has now decided that the Calypso is experimental, and they won't pay without more evidence of medical need (strange, the FDA approved it and the Army has several of them at various hospitals). But already having seen one session interrupted because the Calypso detected internal movement of the target area (probably because I had a bit of gas that day), I think it is worth the money to keep me from having radiation go where it shouldn't. There will be some significant protest from my part. If not for that day, I might never have known if it worked or was useful.

Sort of like seatbelts - do we get a refund if we never got any benefit from them?

I hope that is the case, Barry. I was grateful that my catheter didn't choose to act up during that time, and that the bottom of the leg bag never peaked out the bottom of my pants. I was smart enough to seat up straight the whole time and never try to cross my legs, a sure way to get the tube from the cath to the leg bag to pull loose. And I kind of denied myself water ahead of time, so that the leg bag wouldn't tend to fill up fast, making me need to interupt the meeting to empty it. This is what I mean by adapting to one's situation. The greatest relief was not having a spasm during any of the time we met, it's kind of hard not to show a severe look of pain when one is having one.
The spasm I had when I started driving back home made up for that though.

Hope to hear back from them early this week.

David in SC