Dipping My Toe Back in the Western/Oncology World

 I had a video conference/visit with my onc today. As he pointed out, the last visit we had was in April 2020.This kind, well educated, respectful physician, excellent in his field, has been my oncologist since I moved to the Bay Area in 2017.

He started off with just asking me how I was and the answer to that was that I was pretty normal. I had my normal complaints: Severe Chemotherapy Induced Peripheral Neuropathy, specifically my hands and my feet; fatigue that has nothing to do with how much sleep or exercise I get. I explained to him that I now had to take Flomax as a result of the radiation two years ago. But that really, all in all, for a guy that is seven years out from stage IV, Gleason eight (4+4) with severe metastasis to the lungs, I was doing pretty well. Not great. Not always easy. Yet pretty damned good.

But considering someone with my diagnosis has a 3 in 10 chance of making it five years, and I just passed seven years in March. I feel pretty damn lucky. Especially since I've lost two friends in last year who were much younger than myself to different cancers. Diagnosed and dead within a year.

So despite the fact that he thinks I should have another biopsy and reconsider making hormone deprivation therapy my routine, I'm still opposed to those ideas. But we probably will do an Auxumin scan again to look for where the cancer is. Maybe an MRI if the Auxumin scan gives us new, different detail. My PSA has quadrupled since he saw me in March 2020. So to him and to me, that means that things are on the march. But I also know that nobody ever died from a high PSA. It’s just one marker. And when I was diagnosed with that damned diagnosis, my PSA was right about 5.2. But I want to be at least palliatively proactive. 

As much as I respect this physician, and I truly do, I feel like I may need to find somebody else who can think outside the Damned Castration Box. And I'm not sure that that Oncologist exists. All I know is, between luck, my doc’s advice and my decisions,I've beat the odds.

And for that, I’m grateful.