Good morning, beloved friends and family, and welcome to our Caring Bridge website! Here we plan to provide timely and useful updates and information about our on-going adventure treating my Stage IV (!!!) prostate cancer (for more details about that, please see the bottom of this note).
I also want to use this portion of the site to share what I call my "Guiding Principles." These are ideas I prayed on and pondered during the weeks between receiving the diagnosis and starting my first chemotherapy treatment the last week of August (2021).
#1. MY PAST HAS BEEN "GIVEN" TO ME; NO FUTURE IS BEING "TAKEN" FROM ME. Credit for this principle goes to Mr. Tim, a man whose family goes to our church and who lost both of his 20-something sons this year. The second son's funeral was at our church on the same day as my first visit to MD Anderson. And what happened was that after a very long morning of tests, scans, and procedures, including another piece of bad news (my PSA was 976.0 that day) as Joy and I were waiting for the first oncologist consultation, Facebook advised that my church was live streaming. Curious that the service was still going in the afternoon, I clicked the link. And I heard about two minutes of Tim's eulogy. It was the part where he said that his family considered NOT that their sons had been taken from them (through their untimely deaths), but that their sons had been GIVEN to them for the period of their earthly lives. An incredibly brave, moving and inspiring perspective (imo). And applicable to my upcoming trial. So I'm sure it was not a coincidence that I heard those two minutes of that eulogy ...
#2. ALWAYS BE LEARNING ("ABL"). I love to think about earthly life as a series of growth and learning opportunities. I can always be taught something, if I'll only pay attention and listen. And almost immediately after discovering that I have cancer, I started thinking of things that I have not yet learned but that I could (and should) learn. Three I can articulate so far are as follows: I need to learn to ask for help when I need help (because I do and I will); I need to allow people to express their love for me to me and gratefully accept it (being loved is humbling and touching); and I am not indispensable (because I am not).
#3. WHILE WE CAN CONTROL SOME OF THE PROCESS; WE CANNOT CONTROL THE OUTCOME. Obviously, I don't know what's going to happen with the prostate cancer that's in my body right now. Maybe I will die from it soon. Maybe I will die from it 20 years from now. Maybe it will just go away inexplicably. I have no idea! And what happens -- the outcome -- is not up to me. It's out of my control. So instead of focusing on the outcome, I am trying to focus my attention on the things I can control: the PROCESS of seeking treatment for my disease. One part I can (somewhat) control is my attitude: so I plan to endure this trial with the pure joy of a person who believes the promises of God that my eternal future is assured and who is excited to have a chance to be a witness how a person of faith perseveres, and I plan to be constantly grateful (His mercies are new every morning). One part is my diet: so I plan to eat mostly only very healthy food (thank you forever, beloved Joy!!). One part is my activity: so I plan exercise regularly. And one part is my cooperativeness: so I plan to listen to and try to follow the instructions and recommendations from our care team.
By the way, although I have been diagnosed with a "terminal" case of cancer, our oncologist also said it is VERY IMPORTANT for us not to wallow in that diagnosis. He assured us that he and the rest of the care team are committed to working hard to fight this cancer to the best of their abilities, and he admonished me that getting treatments and fighting cancer needs to be only a PART of my life. I need to live the rest of it. To celebrate, experience and enjoy it moment to moment.
So, let's go ... chemotherapy starts tomorrow (August 25, 2021); I am finishing this note on the afternoon of August 24, 2021 (and I edited it a bit, but not substantively, on July 2, 2022).
INFORMATION AS OF JULY 2021 -- DIAGNOSIS DETAILS AND TREATMENT PLAN: My prostate cancer is Stage IV, it has metastasized from my prostate into the lymph nodes in my pelvis, many of the bones in my pelvis, a few spots in my ribs and to a small extent into my left lung and my bladder. Treatment plan is six cycles of hormone therapy and chemotherapy, every three weeks, extending through the first week of December (2021). Then we will evaluate how did the cancer respond to the treatment and choose additional treatments, as needed or appropriate, from there. -- CURRENT BEST INFORMATION ON PROGNOSIS (if this is helpful to people): Oncologist describes my cancer as terminal, given current available treatments. That's probably the worst part of the news, from an earthly life perspective. The rest of the news is a LOT better ... we are told that average survival periods for people with cancer as extensive as mine is six to seven years with outliers surviving twenty-plus years. So full expectation that y'all will have to put up with me for at least the next several years, including overly wordy Journal Entries on this site. #blessed
INFORMATION AS OF JULY 2022 -- UPDATED DETAILS AND TREATMENT PLAN: while my cancer responded pretty well to the chemotherapy treatments, to the extent that my scans looked pretty favorable in April 2022, my cancer is not now responding well at all to the hormone treatment (Lupron) I'm on or to the immunotherapy treatment I received earlier this year (Provenge). Instead, it's progressing quite a bit. Our oncologist described it as having taken a "turn for the worse" since April, with increased spread and having a more aggressive look in terms of where it's showing up and how its manifesting itself in those places. Yuck. And boo! There are other treatments, of course, and we are pursuing those. See blog posts for more details!
-- CURRENT BEST INFORMATION ON PROGNOSIS (again, if this is helpful): Cancer not responding to the hormone treatment is bad from a prognosis perspective. Latest prognosis from the oncologist was average survival from cancer no longer responding to hormone treatment is two years. Given the aggressive look we're seeing now, we are sure hoping at least some of the treatments we'll be starting next and soon will work. Maybe they will! Otherwise, I am sort of feeling like two years is a long shot! (We don't control the outcome! :-))
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