Cancer Journal #52 Oct 23

 Nothing much has happened with my cancer (so far as I know) and so I haven't done an entry for a while.  Next week (I say that with the Wisconsin understanding of that term; not the upcoming week but the week after that.  It's confusing and my least favorite Wisconsinism.) I will have my PSA measured.  It's my hope and semi-expectation that it will remain too low to be detectable. The long haul can be hard to keep good habits going in though.  I eat cheese curls at 9:30PM and my best rationalization is that cancer is entitled to get back in the game.  Back when I played ping pong and was up 13 to 3, I might let my opponent win 3 or 4 volleys just to keep it interesting.  Higher stakes with cancer and foolish to not continue to do all I can to win but there it is.

I don't think I have done an inventory of what all I do to beat this thing.  I read a good article in the New Yorker a while back by that Siddhartha Mukherjee of Emperor of All Madadies' fame that started out speaking of Zebra Mussels invading Lake Michigan.  He noted that where they came from (the Black Sea or Caspian Sea), they didn't have the overwhelming success that they do in Lake Michigan because they are in a controlled niche.  Whatever the controls are don't exist in Lake Michigan and they have overwhelmingly successful conquest.  He said it was like that with cancer.  In order for cancer to not have Zebra Mussel success in our bodies, we have to provide an environment that places controls on it.  To analogize some more, he said that cancer is the seed, the body it is in is the soil.  Seed needs soil that is suited to its thriving.  My job is to provide soil unsuitable to the cancer.  Here's what I do:

I take my meds.  Haven't missed a night in the ten months or so they've been prescribed, four pills out of a bottle that lasts a month and costs $12,000 and some odd hundred dollars each month.  Still can't get over that.  I have big doubts that it is providing a benefit in any way commenserate with that cost and also doubts that it is really costing anyone (such as my insurance company and Medicare) that much money.  But anyway, I take them every night.  I get an injection every three months of a time released med that has turned off my testosterone which is the primary feeder of prostate cancer.  Outside of the obvious impact, its absence is not affecting my life much.  I get hot flashes which are no big deal as long as you don't let them be a big deal.  I also have 100 grams of Vitamin C injected into me intravenously each week.  I pay for that out of my own pocket and it's my primary cancer expense.  If it's working (and for all I know, it's the primary thing that is keeping me well) it's cheap.  Sure doesn't cost any $12,000 per month.

I do more.  I'll save them for a later entry.