Cancer Journal

 I had a PSA test this week that showed my level to be too low to be detectable.  I am finding it monotonous to note how monotonous the same result is each time.  I have nothing new to say about the subject of monotony. There was a woman who read my article in Volume One (see #115) and spoke to a friend about it.  The friend knows me and suggested that the woman might want to discuss cancer with me.  She has been diagnosed with breast cancer with concern over metastasizing into her lungs.  We did meet for lunch and the conversation was good.  At the end of it, I asked her if we could pray about things.  We did and I believe the Holy Spirit was there.  She asked or I offered praying regularly about cancer.  We have done that once since over the phone.  There is an intense prayer that I can enter into which sounds bizarre. Terrible agonized noises or intense weeping etc.  Sounds like I am having just an awful time.  Actually...

 I had my PSA checked yesterday and it was again "too low to be detectable".  So curious for such unchanging news to be, nonetheless, good news.  Could change any time and because of that, I feel a twinge of apprehension  ahead of time and then, on getting the same news, relief.  I send out emails announcing the result and the celebration responds lack a certain spontaneity.  How could it be otherwise?  I don't want to stop sending the emails and recipients don't want to stop expressing happiness at the good but unsurprising news.  But it does take on something in the nature of ritual.  Oh well,  nothing to complain about. In Cancer Journal #112, I included some writing I had done about my cancer survival and reported that I either had or would submit it to the local arts and entertainment magazine, Volume One.  They printed it.  It has some edits that I later made and pictures of me struggling to lift weights with my fitness c...

 My three month cancer checkup was this week and again, my PSA was too low to be detectable.  Monotonously good news which certainly beats interesting bad news.  I quizzed the oncology lady about a couple of things.  One is that numbers associated with red blood cell count have been consistently low over the years.  She has characterized them as "stable".  I asked her if stable might also be "chronic" as in something permanently bad.  A blood disease like leukemia I suppose.  She assured me that if something like that were going on, other numbers would give an indication that something was wrong and that that was not happening.  She said that the low red blood count numbers were not surprising, given the fact that my testosterone has been turned off.  And besides, they weren't that low. I also asked what would happen if I were to go off the treatment program.  After all, I have had nary a whiff of active prostate cancer for a ...

  I was very tickled to get this from my good friend, Jan Carroll.  Funny how a gesture like this can have such an impact/

                                                                   This is an article I have written for a local arts and entertainment newspaper in our area. Although it has been submitted, I have not gotten word as to whether it will be published. Much of what I have written here repeats what I have said in prior blog entries.    Should be dead I met with an oncologist on Nov 16, 2020.  He said I had an aggressive form of prostate cancer (8 on the Gleason scale) that had metastasized throughout the bones in my pelvic region, putting me at state 4 in cancer’s progression.  He told me that I had 3 to 5 years left to live.  No qualifiers or percentages less than 100.  The future foretold with certainty.  I took the news with...

 I again had my PSA checked yesterday and again it is too low to be detectable.  My diagnosis of  an aggressive form of Stage 4 Prostate cancer is coming up on five years.  November 2020, I believe.  I'm not much for noting anniversaries but this is a big one since my Oncologist told me I had 3-5 years to live.  No qualifiers or expressions of uncertainty.  It prompted a poem about death coming for me as a ship coming into port. "The Good Ship Mortality".  I expressed a grim acceptance.  Perhaps once I have passed the 5 year mark I will find it and reprint it.  I will call myself a "Dead man walking."   Don't know that that is an appropriate use of the phrase (It's for someone headed toward the electric chair, isn't it?) but I'll do it anyway.  Has a nice ring. My Oncology PA expressed astonishment that my energy level and mood remain good.  I think it helped that I didn't know that that was what I could expect as a s...