It's been a while since the last entry. If I am calculating correctly, I have missed three reports of my PSA remaining at a level too low to be detectable. It has indeed been regularly too low to be detectable and yesterday I again had the PSA checked and again it remains too low to be detectable. This is a cancer blog with no cancer to talk about. I was first diagnosed, I was told I had three to five years to live. I am now in that window of death as I like to call it. Come November, I will be over the five years mar I continue to be treated for cancer, receiving a shot every three months that turns off my testosterone and a daily oral medication that is to serve as a backup for the shot (the shot is called Lupron). The most noteworthy feature of the daily medication is that it costs $17,000 something per month. I have made uneasy peace with that exorbitance, which I worked through in some earlier blogs. I still believe ...
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...
It’s VIP parking at the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center with parking slots a few steps from the door. Speaks more to our presumed physical condition than our importance I suppose but it’s handy, especially if I am running late. The accommodation is not meant for me, at least not right now. In fact, I feel great. I’d never know there was anything wrong with me if they hadn’t told me. Still, the parking is handy. Inside, people in the waiting room are not doing great. Mostly they are old. A few young ones that I really feel bad for. A woman in her 20s with a slow, unsteady gait and not much light in her eyes. I hope her condition is curable and that this will just be a bad episode in a fully lived life. I don’t visit with those who are waiting although that would be my natural tendency. We are all masked and social distanced which inhibits conversation. And then, talk loud enough to be heard w...
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