Dear Readers,
I need to apologize to you all. I have not provided any updates from my last post about my cancer diagnosis. So here we go.
(if you are interested I maintained a chronicle of my experience weekly on my Facebook page. Search me on FB and you can read a Live Action Chronicle of my treatments, emotions and tribulations.)
After diagnosis it was a whirlwind, no, more like a tornado of activity and non-activity. After the diagnosis I was in shock. The doc told me it was Stage 4 and my odds lay at a 15% survivability. For a couple days shock set in and my mind was a wreck. But then I began to believe what I said to the doc when he told me that news and ask what I thought. I told the doc, "Cancer has fucked with the wrong son-of-a-bitch this time." Easy to say really hard to internalize.
Almost immediately I was in the operating room where they cut out every piece of cancer they could find along with 15-20% of my liver. After several days in the hospital I was sent home to recover because doc said if they started chemo right after the extensive surgery it would probably kill me not the cancer.
The first week of January I started chemo, every two weeks for 6 months. I'd go to the Kansas University Medical Center Cancer Center for a drip, drip, drip of one chemo and then they would hook me to a pump with a different chemo that I carried with me for 48 hours then back to the cancer center to have it removed.
The good news is these two chemo drugs didn't make me ill or lose my hair, at least not much illness or hair lost. My side effects were for 3-4 days I was pretty much lost to the world. Just sleeping or no energy and sitting in a chair in a daze. About the time I would begin to feel a little better it was time for another treatment.
That was pretty much my life six months.
During that 6 months I was diagnosed with prostate cancer, 3 tumors but they have not been a big concern right now.
During treatment I had multiple scans, CT, MRI and PET. I was a popular guy, everyone was always wanting to look inside me for something.
The treatments were not over. It was hard at times to maintain my fight. Every once in a while what I call dark moments would creep into my thoughts. I would allow myself only a few minutes maybe 3-4 to recognize that possibility but then I would shut them down and jump full force back into the ring.
Finally in June I got my last treatment and got to ring the bell. The bell signifies my treatments had ended. For six months I had listened to people ring that bell and participated in the applause everyone gave that stranger only bound to me by a common experience.
After treatment ended I was again overwhelmed with multiple scans, blood draws and doctor visits. Along with, back to those pesky probate tumors discovered during my earlier scans while taking chemo. Then it was time to schedule biopsies for the prostate tumors.
A doctor visit in July with my oncologist..........
The words that were delivered to me by the doctor. "Ron, I have looked at your scans over and over and over and can no evidence of cancer in your torso or groin." That doesn't mean there isn't something but for now from what I can see there is no cancer. Now the bad news the cancer that had metastasized onto your liver, so there is a chance it could be floating around in your blood and could find a new home, most likely in the lungs but you have never smoked so that is in your favor. We will continue CT scans with contrast every 3 months. I ask, "For how long?' Doc just said "For as long as I want for you to do them and that will be for a loooong time."
I am enrolled in a clinical trial. It measures cancer DNA in my blood. At this time the results of those blood samples indicate 0.00 cancer DNA in my blood.
At the end of that doctor visit with everyone smiling the doctor had one last comment. "I still remember at our first visit what you told me about cancer messing the wrong guy, you were right." He began laughing, I think he was more surprised at this outcome and visit than I was.
Now for the prostate biopsies. Different doc says piece of cake, no problem. Let me tell you THEY LIE.
Did the biopsies. They took 15 needle biopsies and 3 of them were malignant. However, they are very small and not in important areas so the doc recommends intensive surveillance and monitoring.
That brings everything up to date. My next CT scan is October 31 so until then I am am living my best life.
