John Voyda John Voyda

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John began having prostate issues early in the year and was scheduled for a biopsy April 1st.  He was also needing a knee replacement that was scheduled for April 7th.  Both of these procedures were cancelled the last week in March due to the coronavirus.  On May 26th John was one of the first called back for elective surgery on his knee.  Knee surgery went well.  Skipping ahead we were able to go spend time in Duluth the second week in July and John was experiencing back and hip pain which at the time we associated it with his knee surgery and the other knee that still needs to be replaced.  He finally got the call to see the urologist on July 16th where they found his PSA numbers to be off the chart high, 170.  His last PSA test he had, at his annual checkup was 3.4 in September…. normal.  They rescheduled him with a biopsy for the following Tuesday, July 21st.  That weekend July 18th we took him to Regions ER because he had a hard time getting out of bed and was in terrible pain.  While in ER they did a CT scan on him and found cancer in his spine and on his lung.  They gave him pain pills and sent him home.  His biopsy was the following Tuesday, July 21st.  At that time, they told us they believed he had prostate cancer but had to wait for the lab reports to make It official.  They did set us up with an oncologist at the Regions Cancer Center, who had a video conference with John and I, and all of our kids were there as well.  Wow!!! what a great support team he has.    Well the news that no one likes to hear came through on that conference call.  His oncologist Dr. Hurley explained that John has Stage 4 prostate cancer and it has metastasized to his spine and lung.  They are doing a bone scan on him August 10th to find out more exacts on the cancer in the spine.  He will begin Chemotherapy on August 18th.  He will be having Chemo for 5 months, once every 3 weeks.  We will keep you updated as this plays out.   Please keep John and our family in your prayers.  God is good!!!