Joe Deeter

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.


Joe was diagnosed with AggressiveProstate cancer in 2015.   He underwent prostatectomy in August.     Lymph node dissection was negative.    The PSA began to rise.   March 2016, Joe started radiation treatments.    Hormone therapy has been given since diagnosis in the summer of 2015.


Joe began seeing a doctor at Cleveland Clinic.    He met with the doctor multiple times, but has been frustrated by the lack of any specific plan of action.   The doctor seems to favor a "wait and see" approach to let the cancer surface somewhere else.   Bone scans and CT scans have been negative in showing any spread of the cancer despite a rising PSA level.


We have been researching the disease and our possible options.   We want to find the cancer and destroy it.    We are interested in  several new treatments that use the body's immune system to seek out and destroy the cancer.   One is called Provenge, another is called Prostvac.   Both are administered to the patient and program the  white blood cells to  find the PSA (cancer cells) and destroy them.   These are not easy to get, but we are trying to figure out our best plan of action.


We have also discovered a new PET/CT scan technology that uses special agents that are injected into the bloodstream and can show prostate cancer cells in the body.  We have located a Prostate cancer specialist at IU medical Center that is using this technology.   We have an appointment on February 27th to meet this new doctor, Thomas Gardner, and review all of Joe's records and try to get a plan of treatment.   


Joe has done a fantastic job of creating a timeline of events and test results including a graph that shows treatments relative to PSA levels.   I believe that he is cutting out a lot of the legwork for the doctor so he can get down to business to make a plan.


We will continue to use this website to keep you updated.    If you have information or advice that you think might help Joe, please forward it to me, at Diana.butler62@outlook.com.    I will research it and share it with Joe if it seems that it may be valuable to his particular situation.    Joe has recieved a vast amount of information and advice from people who deeply care about him.    The challenge is that so much advice can tend to make one second-guess their plan of treatment.   We continue to look for the best possible care that can help Joe beat this cancer.