I'm grateful to say (knock the proverbial wood) that like those of you reading, I survived 2020, COVID and isolation. I plowed through the lack of interaction with others as well as exercise, lack of nutritionally diverse meals and overall generally less than ideal circumstances, particularly for those of us that live with chronic, serious conditions.
I survived an assault by a bail agent in my home who was looking for someone else. Survived some type of mild blood poisoning. Survived an abusive landlord situation. BUT! Moved into a loving, family situation recently and am so very grateful. Survived.
I survived losing several people (none due to COVID, but too many to Big C), including one of my dearest friends ever. Pancreatic and took almost exactly 1 year to be diagnosed, "treated" and die. This one will take a while to grieve over.
I've survived And so have you. Good on each of us.
I'm three weeks out from Dose 1 of Pfizer COVID vax and will get the second in about ten days. By the end of the month, I should be well protected but will continue to follow masking and sanitary guidelines as I refuse to be a spreader. I will get out, but still with caution. Perhaps a bit more confidence?
But doing so means I need to see where things are at with my unwanted guest and my last in person visit with Palliative Doc/Advisor and set of bloodwork was in Sept/Oct 2020. I got the blood work done yesterday and see the P Doc Monday. Here's what I know from the blood work:
* my basic CBC and baseline metabolic a look good.
* PSA is up, but not as much as I expected (yay?). From a 26.6 ng/ml in Sept to a 37.4 this week.
Given my poor diet and the stress of the last few months, I expected it to have jumped substantially more than that. It'll be interesting to see what the Doc says. I'm guessing we'll do some additional imaging just to ensure that no tumor is getting ready to perforate anything.
How have I been physically?
Overall pretty good. The usual culprits, fatigue and foot/hand/limb pain remain and have gotten a bit worse. I still keep walkin'. As a friend reminded me yesterday, fatigue and being "kinda tired" are two, distinctly different things. Neuropathic/joint and bone pain are also a different kind of pain than arthritis, etc.
I continue to urinate rather well particularly if Flomax is on board....so I try never to run out. Sometimes a bit strained and/or difficult/extraordinarily painful, but fortunately those instance are not too often. Very little, if no urgency issues.
Erectile function is good, even without ED meds. I do take 40 mg of sildenafil daily (like vitamins!) to ensure blood flow to my old and valued friend. But I'm grateful to have good function for a 59 year old, 7 year PC patient. The odds are against men, even without PC, in this area.
I have some mild bleeding during BMs at times but I'm 99% sure it is a small, internal roid that is a result of using pain meds for sometime. I'm trying to heal it naturally because proctologists......well....yeah.
All that said, for a guy that was told he didn't have long even IF he followed all physician recommendations, I'm doing OK. That was 7 years ago! It makes me wonder if so much of what men with PC are offered/put through really makes a difference as to longevity. The studies suggest not and I chat regularly with men, older and younger, who have followed every piece of doc advice, from radical prostatectomies to multiple hormone drugs (ugh!) to implanted radiation to orchiectomies (look that one up). Each of these could have it's place, but I fear that too often men are steared these directions for the sake of profit rather than what the evidence is. Fear of death is a powerful motivator.
What I can tell you is that I did the chemo for 6 rounds as well as 8 months of castration "therapy" the first year and then, 5 years later, did 5 rounds of SBRT (look it up...highly focused, high intensity atomic assault but almost 100% on just the target). That's it. That's all my "western" treatments. So far, so good. The side effects were less than I expected, I have testosterone (* to all those who say, "You look SO good"....I think if I have even a remote claim to that, it's because I have T in my veins.), I hurt but I've hurt for most of these years. I'm fatigued but it's become just a part of life.
Is it high dosage cannabis/cbd that has slowed all this down? I don't know but I have little to no other explanation.
I'm fortunate.
So I survive and am grateful. How this has worked out compared to what I was told to expect are not the same. I hurt. I'm drained much of the time. But I can still get out some, do normal tasks, I walk like a nerd in pain....oh, I am a n ierdn pain. But I'm doing quite well all things considered and feel so very fortunate.
Readers can always feel free to contact me. I think the blog is around 40+ thousand views from around the world and I've had the honor of answering numerous men's and women's questions. I'm an open book so feel ok in reaching out. I've become far more of an expert on the topic than I ever wished to be ;)
Best wishes and peace be with you.
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