Day 84, The Fight Goes On

I’ve struggled to write this blog post.  More accurately, I’ve written several possible posts and haven’t posted them because they haven’t had the right attitude.  This one starts out on a bit of a down note, but will be more optimistic and humorous near the end.  I promise.

While my blood work continues to show signs of progress, there hasn’t been corresponding progress in how I feel.  Which isn’t to say there haven’t been changes in how I feel.  Cancer treatment so far has been an unending series of changes.  Side effects replace symptoms.  Mood and energy levels change as treatments change and as blood counts roller coaster up and down with each chemo cycle.  With such changes from day to day, it’s really hard to pick out subtle trends of progress.  At the moment, I’m basically in cancer purgatory.

I’m reading as much as possible about my disease and have joined a online forum for advanced prostate cancer.  Learning is a double edged sword.  I’m given hope by the success stories and learning about the available treatments and new treatments that are in the pipeline and will be available in the years to come.  On the other hand, I’m learning just how quickly cancer can return, and there are regular posts on the forum about members who have lost their war.

The good news is that I seem to be having a better than normal response to treatment so far.  The bad news is that my starting point is very advanced.  I recently found out the results of my whole body bone density scan.  There’s signs the cancer has spread as far as my upper arms.  That is a lot of cancer to fight back.

I’ll be undergoing chemotherapy for another three months.  When chemo is done, another drug will be added to my cocktail and I’ll continue on that treatment regimen indefinitely.  By this spring the side effects should finally stabilize and I hope to feel some definite progress and be able to ramp up my activity levels. If the treatments continue to work into the summer it will be time to consider returning to work.

To keep this post somewhat positive, I won’t go into detail about what could go wrong, but will point out the use of “should”, “hope”, and “if” in the previous paragraph.

Okay, time for a bit of humor.  I believe I’m getting some side effects from Xgeva, which you may remember from a previous post is the drug produced by genetically modified hamster ovaries.  This brings me to one of my favorite Bart Simpson quotes, “Ooooh, my ovaries!”.  It’s an excuse I intend to take advantage of in the future:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7LJwZ7uRno&t=40

And now the positive attitude (you may notice that I’m trying to shape that attitude as I write this).  People regularly ask me how I’m doing.  I’ve always struggled to answer this even before the cancer diagnosis.  Life is never perfect.  I’m finally learning to look past the imperfections and see that I’m still on the proverbial sunny side of the sod and can still get out to socialize and exercise.  In the context of advanced cancer, I’m doing fantastic.  I find it strange that other people can see this better than I can and get very enthusiastic about it:

I can still run a mile without stopping.  I can still sprint quite fast for a 51 year old.  I have full control over my bladder.  I’m still able to shovel snow, carry firewood, and do my own oil changes.  In short, I can still do many things that many of my peers without out cancer can’t do.  Heck, I’m undergoing chemo and still have more hair than many of my peers (though I wouldn’t recommend pointing this out to them, don’t ask me how I know).

I’m choosing to focus on the process of fighting the cancer and what I can still do.  To focus on the results and what I can’t do would set me up for a crisis with each setback and complication.  The fight is expected to last the rest of my life, which hopefully will be decades.  There will be setbacks and complications in that time, but the only failure is if I give up the fight.