Done with hormone treatment!

After 24 months of taking Lupron and Casodex as part of Hormone Therapy, I'm done!

FYI, hormone therapy is designed to cut off the food source of aggressive high risk prostate cancer, testosterone.
So over the past 2 yrs I've tolerated weight gain (20 lbs), hot flashes, mood swings.....yeah, almost turned me into a woman ;)

Big deal, great trade-off to kick cancer's ass and putting it into remission.

Huge thx to my Dr's and the support of my family.

Until next time, be well.

Bob

kickinPC

Went in for my quarterly appointment with my Oncologist on Tuesday of this week.
Blood test, PSA, conversation with Dr. Reza...all went went.

today, phone call from Alison, Dr. Reza's nurse.

PSA = 0.0

Yeah baby....KickinPC!!! The words "cancer is in remission" are music to my ears

Now tell a friend, raise awareness, let's go find a cure

Steve Lavin has PCa

Steve Lavin, coach of the St. John's University mens basketball team has PCa.

he discovered it in September and will get treatment now that the season is over.
Steve is 46 years old, 21 years younger than the diagnosis age....

What shocks me is that he had his PSA checked which helped him identify he has cancer.
Why mention this? Medical students are now being taught at many universities that they should discourage men from getting their PSA done. WHAT?!?!

It's crazy, doesn't make any sense

nope, it's a major victory

I can't tell you how my energy level and attitude is sky high since monday.
Getting the news that we're stopping the Lupron injections after 18 months....and then hearing the latest PSA test was 0.0 it has me pumped!

Really pumped...I'm kicking cancer's ass, it's in remission and I want to thank my oncologist, Dr. Reza Nazemzadeh and his nurse Allison for GREAT care.

this is good....really good.

And I need to continue my messaging, raising awareness so that other men realize 1 in 6 will get PC and 1 in 2 men will get any type of cancer. Man up, get your PSA checked.

rumors are false

the rumors of my disappearance are false....I've just been procrastinating far too long on the latest post. Hope you all had great holidays, I did, they were relaxing, quite, awesome time with family.
Hell, we even got 4" of snow in NC on 12/26.

My last Oncologist visit was late December, latest PSA was 0.01 so the hormone therapy is working as planned. I have 18 months under my belt with 6 more months to go. Originally the Dr and I talked about being on hormone therapy for 2 years and we're sticking to it.

My Dr. did say that after the 2 years is done, the Lupron and Casodex will linger in my body for 6-9 months afterwards which means the side effects will continue. Speaking of, since my last shot on 12/20, the freakin hot flashes are at a new level, more dramatic than ever. It sucks, but it beats hearing "your cancer has spread"....so I'll continue to carry my towel, sweat, freeze, sweat, freeze :)

So until next time....which I promise won't be too long...be well and Go PACKERS!!!

the best Xmas present ever

I just got off the phone with the nurse and she had my results from my PSA test yesterday.
talk about fast!

she said and I quote "the report says the PSA is 'less than o.o1' which is as close to zero as it gets"

Awesome news and it means the treatments are working.
While 2009 started with the 'you have cancer' news....it's ending on a very positive note.

Here's to a great 2010!

All the best.

Health update

Hey everyone, yesterday was another visit to the oncologist for another PSA blood test and a shot of Lupron. Not the kind of 'shot' I prefer but it's doing it's job. In my younger days the shot would come in a short little glass but hell I'm too old for that now.

Good conversation with Dr. Reza, he's pleased with how the treatments are going and so are we. Tolerating the side effects is easier than getting fitted for a new suit and a pine box. Hold the flower arrangements for a while, this old dog is planning on being around a while.

Funny thing at the Dr. yesterday...being in sales the last week or two of each quarter and for the year are a little stressful as we chase down deals to get them closed. One deal in particular this year meant a lot to me which was a new deal with the PGA Tour. My rep who was working it needed this deal to put him well over 200% for Q4 but more importantly achieve 'Inner Circle' which is something you don't want to miss. So while I was at the office we were waiting for the contract to get signed and faxed.

The nurse took my blood pressure....it was 160 over 108...pretty damn high and she was surprised. Then I told her about the deal, sales, etc and it all made sense :)

We got the deal, my team member reached Inner Circle and my bp is much lower.

Here's wishing you all a very happy holidays season. I'll most likely be back before we close out 2009.

Make it a great day

how low can you go, second try :))

the PSA results are in....drum roll please.....and the results are 0.03!

Woo Hoo, the treatments are doing exactly what we want them to do, stop the cancer cells in their tracks. It's great news and gives me a ton of positive energy.

Thanks to everyone for your continued support.

another post soon, recapping our thanksgiving vacation.

later

Another PSA

Hey everyone, hope this post finds you well and getting reading for a big Thanksgiving Feast.
YUM! Holy man, I can't personally wait because my appetite is insatiable right now. Can anyone point me to the nearest Weight Watchers meeting?

today, another visit with the Medical Oncologist and another blood test. Dr. Reza fully expects the number to drop again from 0.94 to an even lower number. We'll find out tomorrow or monday and I'll let you all know the results.

We did talk about side effects and unfortunately there are a few. I already mentioned the appetite and the weight thing but we mainly talked about the hot flashes. Man, do I have a full appreciation for what women go through, amen sisters, you have my full respect. Holy shit, the HF's have been full on lately, especially at night which makes it particularly difficult to sleep. One minute you wake up in a full sweat, sheets are soaking, then next you're freezing. With all the tossing and turning, shedding covers then diving under them for warmth, I'm getting about 3 hours of total rest each night. not good

so, I'm trying some Flaxseed Oil to hopefully tone down the HF's. We'll see.

Okay my friends, go have yourselves an AWESOME Thanksgiving, me and the fam are heading down to cocoa beach/cape canaveral which should be very cool. Oh, wish us luck on the weather, if it's good, the space shuttle will land in FL on friday and we hope to watch.

All the best

new PSA coming

Hey I know, I know, my blogging is getting slow, sorry about that but I warned you I'm a rookie at this.

So today, another Dr. visit and I have to tell you it's kind of funny. You check in and they say 'how are you doing?'. Then the nurse calls you in and says "good to see you again". It's good manners, real polite but sometimes I want to respond by laughing and saying.. "It's good to see you too, I just wish it was not in this office and more like the grocery store".

Are you kidding me! my goal is to not stop in every month to get poked, prodded, pricked with a needle and then asked, how are you doing?. Ah, sorry for the rant but i find it kind of ironic.

Okay, more blood drawn today and I'll get the PSA results tomorrow (hopefully, you know, another 'do the test, then wait'). Dr Reza is pretty confident the PSA level will go down by a good margin so we'll see, as a reminder it last was 8.35.

I most likely won't blog again until Sunday, my son Bradley and I are camping with the Cub Scouts this weekend, being a Webelo this is our third year. Forecast is a little iffy, 50% chance of rain friday afternoon through saturday evening. Last year we got soaked so hoping we get the 50% of un-rain.

hope you had a great week, make it a great weekend!

Bob

Health update

okay, newest update on the health front....so to recap a little history:

- Feb 28, first PSA = 40.6
- Mar 6, second PSA = 58
- Mar 16, biopsy - confirmed, prostate cancer
- Radiation from 5/19-6/30, total of 30 treatments
- surgery, Aug 3rd
- miles walked since surgery = 156
- post surgery PSA (hoping for .1 or .2) = 7.9 (high)
- started hormone treatment on 9/30
- next PSA taken, 10/22

so, I've started 'stage 3' of my treatments and it's proactive so we can starve the cancer cells that appear to still be in my body. The hormone treatment should drop the PSA dramatically so we're anxious for the results coming next friday.

the beat-down continues

I promise, I'll have more regular posts.

Later

Whoa! I've been quiet....

Sorry about that, just pretty busy.

last weekend we had a chance to visit great friends in Columbus, OH and it was a perfect weekend. 60's and sunny...pretty rare for Columbus really but timed great. My buddy Kevin and I went to the Ohio State-Wisconsin game which was great. We started with a non-traditional tailgate which included fresh fried lake Erie perch...freakin awesome!

The game was pretty interesting and OSU was happy their defense and special teams showed up, otherwise they would have been beat. final score, OSU 31, Wisconsin, 13.

then we spend part of sunday 'Geocaching'. I hadn't heard of this but you have to check it out. They have a great iPhone app that makes it great. It's basically a high-tech scavenger hnt but anyone can 'place' an item and post it to the web for others to find. You can search for 'Caches' close to you and some can be relocated and the web tracks where they have 'traveled'. check it out, it's fun. www.geaocaching.com

On the health front, feeling very good. I go in for another PSA test next week thursday and will have an update on friday as to whether the hormone treatments are working.

That's it for now, sorry about the delay in posts, I'll check in again soon.

Be well.

Surprise, Surprise

Well, at the beginning of this journey I told myself "don't get too high, don't get too low", just stay positive. It couldn't have been better advice.

I had blood drawn last week to establish my new baseline PSA and expected a negligible number like 0.5 or 1.1.....something really low. Hey, let's face it, the prostate is gone, what the hell could produce 'PSA = prostate specific antigen' if it's gone, right?

Well, my PSA came back at 7.9 which is high and it means that the joy in mudville is gone, at least temporarily. Scoring high on a test in school is good, scoring high on a PSA test, not good.

There is no way to tell at this point if some prostate cancer cells may have/had escaped the pelvic area. So unfortunately this isn't going to be perfect.....so now what?

The team of Dr's are recommending starting hormone therapy immediately to try to starve out any cancer cells within the body. Cool, I get to meet another Dr.! (actually, the only Dr. I want to see after all this is done is Dr. Pepper)

I haven't talked to the Dr's yet, just corresponding with the nurse withing the clinical trial group so I'll probably have another update soon.

Later

New PSA

Well, Monday Sept. 7th will be 5 weeks since surgery so last week I had blood drawn for my new PSA baseline. Given that they've taken taken out the prostate and everything resembling cancer, my PSA should show up as almost 0 or 0.1, something low.

Then, I will go ever 3 months for a PSA test to watch to see if the level stays the same or starts increasing. We don't want it to increase because if it does, that means there are cancer cells within the body they couldn't find or remove. But we won't go there.

Labor day weekend, very grateful to be working for a great organization and have the ability to make an impact not only within the org but more importantly with our nonprofit clients. Very rewarding.

Last night we went to a 50th birthday party for a great guy in our neighborhood and what a blast. He hired an incredible band that included, one of the best saxophone players I've heard accompanied by bass player, drums, keyboard and bongo drums. You had to hold yourself back if you didn't want to dance because the music just captured your inner groove. They were loud and awesome.

So with the extra day off, I guess I'll get some more yard work done.

BTW, feeling great, thanks to all for the positive thoughts and prayers.

Now go have some fun!

D-Day, the pathology report

Today I had the follow up appointment from surgery to get the staples and catheter out and to review the pathology report with the Dr and determine next steps.

first, staples and other came out fine, that was the easy part.
In the conversation with the surgeon, he's 99% sure he got 99% of the cancer out. Only one lymph node was positive and the belief is that there may be microcells contained within the pelvic cavity.

So, what next. Well, my surgeon works collaboratively with radiation oncologists and medical oncologists and my case will be discussed at the next 'tumor panel' meeting. The initial thoughts are maybe some radiation and hormone treatments. I'll know more in a couple of weeks which way the thinking is going.

4 weeks from today I'll get my PSA test taken to establish a new baseline and then it will be checked every 3 months afterwards for the first year.

Fighting cancer takes a lot out of you...I'm exhausted...but maybe that's just from the long day of travel back and forth.

Thanks again to everyone for your continued support, it's very much appreciated.

Oh, I can't sign off without asking two questions (feel free to post a comment/response)

1. Did Tiger Woods choke this past weekend?
2. Is Brett Favre nuts?

later