Excuses! Excuses!

I know my posting has been somewhat erratic lately. I don't mean to whine, but I've been kind of preoccupied. Since the beginning of last year, I've lost both my parents, my father-in-law and my prostate.

Unfortunately, the prostate did not go quietly. It seems to have left a little something behind … some prostate-less terror cells running around somewhere.

So the next step is carpet bombing the area with radiation. I'm not sure exactly how this works, but it basically involves a radiation beam aimed at my most intimate portions. I keep picturing that scene from Goldfinger where James Bond is strapped to a gold table while Mr. Goldfinger plans to unseam him from the nave to the chops and beyond!

Along with the radiation goes hormone therapy or, quite literally, temporary emasculation. Since prostate cancer thrives on guy hormones, suppressing those hormones is the best way to slow it down. Warning: Side effects may include hot flashes, softening of muscle definition and frequent bouts of uncontrollable shoe shopping.

Does this blog post make me look fat?

Less is More

A couple of weeks ago I had an unnerving experience.

Since my prostate was removed six months ago, I’ve been hoping for PSA test results of < 0.1. That means the PSA, the marker for prostate cells and, after a prostatectomy, for recurrent prostate cancer, is undetectable. There’s not enough to measure. That’s a very good thing.

But last month, I learned that one of my tests came back as 0.1. Not < 0.1, but 0.1 … detectable. PSA was found. In other words, cancer had returned. And I scarcely had time to miss it. The absence of “<” changed my thinking about life in an instant. Particularly my thinking about continuing it.

As it turns out, my oncologists ordered an immediate retest, and this time, it came back as < 0.1 … the hoped-for result. The earlier reading was a fluke. Statistical noise. Even a typo perhaps.

But that 24 hour period was chilling.

When I was first told I had prostate cancer, and that it was too aggressive to just wait and see how it develops, I elected to just have the damn thing removed. I could have opted for radiation, but cutting the prostate out seemed much clearer to me.

But once the prostate’s gone, if you still have PSA, the cancer cells become like terrorists … prostate-less enemies with no organized … um, organ to use as headquarters. Instead, they’re at large, finding their way around the body in search of new places to set up shop. And there’s no shortage of hideouts.

So how do we find them? How do we hunt down and neutralize all these terrorist cancer cells? 

Seriously, how?