Day 11 – Fun

On By DanIn Prostate CancerLeave a comment
Wow. It was such a great day that I almost forgot to update the blog! If that doesn’t tell you how things are going, I don’t know what will.
I’m getting back into a more routine sleep pattern, waking at more reasonable hours instead of the 3 AM sessions early last week. That’s good.
Today was spent with a coworker and her family. She asked me to take some photos of her family using my new toy (camera) for their Christmas cards this season. It was a fun, warm afternoon and they were more than patient as I continued to learn the features of my camera. Plus, it’s always fun being around a 13-month old child. You have to be quick on your toes and even faster on the shutter release. There were some real “keepers” and a couple of duds.
It was a great distraction from the last week.
On the drive back, I caught up with an old Navy buddy on the phone. (Not that she’s old… Just that it’s an old friendship!) She’s been helping her aging father, and she had some good insights into hospitals and timing of surgeries. She suggested having the surgery earlier in the week rather than later, because trying to get someone discharged out of the hospital on a weekend is next to impossible (based on her experience with her father). Good to know.
So that’s it for this Sunday night. A load of laundry needs to be ironed, and then I’m off to bed.

Day 10 – Pick One, Any One

On By DanIn Prostate Cancer2 Comments
So I woke up in a fog this morning.
I could barely see out the window it was so foggy. Literally. Oh. And the half a bottle of chardonnay from the night before may have helped a tad.
A former co-worker visited last night. We hadn’t seen each other in just over two years, so when I learned she would be in the area for a conference it made sense for her to stop for a visit. We had fun getting caught up over dinner (yes, I cooked!), talking mostly about things other than cancer, and boring her to tears with photos of my last European adventure. It was a great evening.
Once she headed off to the conference this morning, it was a pretty normal day around the house. By late morning, I was zapped and fell back into bed for an hour or so. I think all of the stress of the last week really took a larger toll on my body than I thought it did. I’m going to have to watch that going forward. I certainly don’t want stress to run down my immune system.
Unfortunately, the thing that I’m beginning to stress over is the selection of the surgeon for the prostatectomy. My urologist wasn’t of much help on Thursday.
He operates out of a group of 20 or so urologists in the greater Cincinnati area. He recommended two surgeons within his group to perform the surgery. Both do “hundreds” of robotic prostatectomies each year. Yet when I asked my urologist which doctor he would use if he was the one being operated on, he said, “Both are good.”
One surgeon operates out of one hospital and the other out of a different hospital. I asked which hospital would he prefer to be in, and again, “Both are good.” He did his residency in the first hospital and currently operates out of the second.
Finally, I asked him if there was a good website that I could visit to learn about the doctors or hospitals and their records, and he offered up Angie’s List. “But the people who put comments on sites like that only write negative things,” he said. Hmmm… Sounds like the voice of experience to me.
Needless to say, I was a bit miffed by his non-committal answers.
I know this is the German, Capricorn, analytical side of me coming out, but this is my body and I don’t want this to be a pure crap shoot. If one doctor has a higher complication rate than the other, that would factor into my decision. If one hospital has a higher infection rate than another, that, too, would factor into my decision. Of course, finding the right surgeon is the primary driver; pick the wrong one and I could be peeing in my pants the rest of my life. (And, yes, I know that even great surgeons can have a crappy day. There is no such thing as risk-free surgery.)
I did stumble across a website called Health Grades (see link to the right) that rates doctors and hospitals, but I haven’t had time to research who they are, how independent they are, and how they develop their ratings.
If anyone out there in blog land knows of other ways to research surgeons, I’m all ears! (Post a comment or, preferrably, send an e-mail using the e-mail link in my profile.)
I’ll have to admit that the VP I spoke to yesterday highly recommended his surgeon in Indianapolis. He’s getting me the contact information so I can check him out.
I don’t want to drag this analysis out, either. I want it to be thorough but quick. It’s kind of odd, but when I think about the fact that I have cancer, I sometimes think that I’ve got little critters living inside me. Gremlins. I don’t know. Weird, eh? Anyhow, if they’re not going to pay rent, they’re going to be evicted, sooner rather than later.

An administrative note about this blog…

You may have noticed that I keep people’s names out of my narrative. That’s intentional. Given the fact that any person on the planet with Internet access can read this blog, I prefer to maintain some level of privacy for all of us.

Day 9 – Normalcy?

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Wow. A pretty normal day today. Although when I awoke at 5:00 AM (much better than 3:00 AM the night before!), the first thing that popped into my head was related to… You guessed it. Oh well. I guess that’s the new norm for a while.
I sent an e-mail to one of our company’s VP’s this morning. He had been through this about 4 years ago, and I offered to take him out to lunch if he’d be willing to share his experience with me so that I could be better educated and make a more informed decision about my treatment options. I had met the guy a couple of times in the past but it’s not like I hang out with him, so I was a bit apprehensive about approaching him. Within 10 minutes of the e-mail going out, he called me.
We spoke for nearly 30 minutes, and it was good to get his insight on both the surgeon and hospital selection process, and on the operation and its side effects. (I’ll spare the details for now.)
So the next step is to really do some homework on surgeons and hospital facilities. I hear a spreadsheet calling my name…
I also spent a bit of the day going through all that I pushed off the radar screen in the last few days, trying to get myself back on track and organized to hit the ground running next week, both personally and professionally.
So I think this weekend has some relaxation and some research in store for it… The sooner I get the treatment lined up, the sooner all of this will be in the rear view mirror. (And, no that doesn’t mean I’m rushing the decision. It means I know how long it will take to do my analysis!!)

Day 8 – Oh Happy Day!

On By DanIn Prostate Cancer5 Comments
The bone scan was clean—no spreading of cancer! Woo-hoo!
The day started at 3:00 AM with a trip to the bathroom (TMI, I know…) and me being unable to fall back asleep from there. Random thoughts about anything and everything just bounced around inside my head.
I made it to work and by 10:00 AM, began to get uptight about the 11:15 AM appointment. Luckily, the doctor was running almost on schedule. I was in the exam room by 11:20, he arrived by 11:30, and I was on the phone to my sister at noon with the good news.
I had two meetings scheduled after lunch, and by the end of the second one, I was out of gas. Between the 3 AM wake-up and being a bit more uptight about the results that I expected, I’m toast. This cancer crap is exhausting!
So that’s two days in a row that have been pretty positive. Let me chart that in a spreadsheet with a linear regression trend line!
Next step: A nap.

Day 7 – Rebound

On By DanIn Prostate Cancer1 Comment
What a difference a day makes.
But before getting into that, am I really that predictable? When I spoke with two people about this—in separate conversations in the last 24 hours—one of the first things they both asked was, “How big is your spreadsheet?” Not one, but two! Of course, they’re referring to my propensity to put things into spreadsheets for detailed analysis. Sorry to disappoint, but “Data Dan” has NOT created a spreadsheet for this journey. Yet. (Yes, I’m a geek and damned proud of it!)
So I woke up this morning in a much better frame of mind and that carried through the entire day. I was focused at work and got caught up on a few things that have been casualties of all of these distractions. I’m hopeful that the trend will continue, but wise enough to know that there are probably rough days ahead yet.
I’m not at all worked up about getting the bone scan results tomorrow around noon, which is quite contrary to what I would have predicted a couple of days ago. I’ll try to get the word out as quickly as I can, but I do know that my afternoon is booked with meetings, so getting to the blog may take a while.
I did call for the consultation appointment with the surgeon and that will be late in the afternoon on Thursday, 9 December. I’ll have to confirm that we’ll have the colonoscopy results by then (scheduled on 6 December).
I ended the night with dinner at my friends’ home—a very enjoyable evening and a great close to a much better day.
I guess when you hit a wall, you bounce off and try again.

Day 6 – The Wall

On By DanIn Prostate Cancer2 Comments

No, not the classic Pink Floyd album. The emotional wall that I hit about 6 AM this morning.

I think the adrenalin rush from the last few days finally ended, and I came crashing down. I just wanted to turn a switch off and have the constant thoughts about all of this go away. And when I say constant, I mean every-freakin’-waking-moment constant. It’s exhausting.

Rather than reading my not-so-best seller book last night, I took a pad of paper to bed and wrote down a dozen questions for my follow-up visit with the urologist. When I woke up this morning, I wrote down one or two more amplifying questions. Go to bed thinking about it; wake up thinking about it. Not good. But, I suppose that’s to be expected this early in the diagnosis and treatment game.

When I got to work, I really wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to function effectively. But a couple of attentive listeners passed by my door early in the day and let me vent. (You know who you are… Thanks!) Not long after, I was able to plow through the emotional roadblock and begin work on a weekly report that I run. The simple act of concentrating on spreadsheets and numbers was enough to slowly put some of the thoughts out of my head (or at least to make them appear less frequently).

Three-quarters of the conversation at lunch with a friend was about something other than cancer, and that was refreshing. A couple of meetings after lunch also helped put the thoughts to the side for a while. The moral of the story: Keep busy with other things.

Still, I have research to do, test results to wait for, and decisions to make, and all of those require thinking about this so I won’t be able to shut this off for the foreseeable future.

So what do I keep thinking about? Oddly, it’s not the Big Question. I don’t worry about death or dying. It’s going to happen to the best of us no matter how hard we try to avoid it. We can’t control how or when, so why get worked up about it? I just focus on the here and now: How do I get through today? When do I get my next set of test results? What’s the next step? Thinking too far ahead of the next set of facts won’t do me any good.

Now, back to Pink Floyd…

Before I started working in manufacturing, the first thing that I would do when I came home was turn on the stereo. But after a few short years of working in the constant din of the shop floor, I opted for pure silence when I came home. The stereo stayed off. Now music is playing once again to help soothe and distract. The only drawback is having to crank the Victrola every ten minutes…

So the day started pretty rough and ended much better… I think I’m at the beginning of settling into the new norm for me. And thanks to all of you for your words of support. They mean a lot to me.

Next event: Bone scan results Thursday around noon.

Day 5 – Books, Scans, & Calls

On By DanIn Prostate Cancer3 Comments

Bad idea.

“100 Questions and Answers about Prostate Cancer” is not a good bedtime read. I made through Question 57 and had to put the book down (mainly because it was 11:45 PM).
Most of the material that I read I had seen in my previous research. But there was one particular section that made me feel as though I was reading a Stephen King novel by candlelight in a creaky old house.
Tables 6 and 7 in the book talked about the likelihood of the cancer spreading outside of the prostate (Table 6) or to the lymph nodes (Table 7) based on your PSA score, your Gleason score, and your tumor staging designation.
Based on the descriptions in the book, I think my tumor would be a T2a or T2b. Combine that with my PSA (5) and my Gleason score (6), and there’s a 66% chance that the cancer is confined to the prostate for a T2a tumor and a 44% chance that it’s confined to the prostate for a T2b tumor. For the likelihood that it’s spread to the lymph nodes, it’s 4% and 11%, respectively.
I’ll definitely ask my doctor to confirm my interpretation of the tables when I see him on Thursday and ask him about the study and its legitimacy.
Needless to say, that little tidbit kept me tossing and turning a good chunk of the night, and I woke up this morning with a pit in my stomach and scared about the likelihood that the cancer has spread. Not a good start to the day that I had a bone scan scheduled.
The bone scan was a piece of cake. I went in at 10 AM to get injected with my radioactive juice, and went back at 1 PM for the actual scan. I just had to lie on the table and keep still for 30 minutes. She had to scan my melon-sized noggin twice; apparently the first image wasn’t satisfactory. (No comments about the content or lack thereof, please!)
On my way out, I asked her if she saw anything that would indicate further testing might be required. She told me the doctor would go over the results with me on Thursday, but that I shouldn’t get too worked up before then. I guess that’s a positive sign, but I’ll withhold setting expectations for now.
Just days before my biopsy, I received a jury duty questionnaire from the Ripley County Court. It was just what I needed on top of everything else that was going on. My doctor wrote a note that I can send in with the survey in an effort to get me out of serving. We’ll see if it works.
When I returned home, I found a message on my answering machine from my urologist’s office. She wanted me to call a surgeon that my urologist recommended to set up an appointment to review my case. He was one of three that my urologist had recommended during that initial meeting on Day 1.
That threw me for a loop. I’m not ready to start talking to surgeons yet.
You know me. I wanted to take time to research all three of them to see what I found about their backgrounds, training, number of procedures performed, and complication rates. I also was under the impression that we’d wait for the results of my bone scan and colonoscopy before we started talking specific treatment options. I guess I’ll have to accelerate that research now.
It also makes me wonder if there’s a greater sense of urgency here than I was originally led to believe. Or, perhaps, it’s just that to get on this guy’s calendar, you have to book months in advance. Either way, I’m feeling pressured to take the next step, perhaps prematurely. I’ll talk to my urologist on Thursday to get the real scoop.
So I started the day anxious, had a bright middle of the day, and ended it feeling pressured and confused. I’m not sure you’ll find “100 Questions and Answers about Prostate Cancer” on my nightstand tonight.

Day 4 – Relax and Reflect

On By DanIn Prostate Cancer2 Comments
Sunday.  A day of relaxation.  And that’s what today was—for the most part.
A good chunk of the morning was spent getting this blog up and running.  It’s my first ever, so I had to figure out the technical mechanics of making it work.  That was a good mental distraction even though the content of the blog centers on my cancer.
Other than that, there were the few odd chores that needed to be done around the house—picking up, watering plants, a load of laundry or two, a run to Kroger to buy some groceries, and a stop by the post office to pay what will be the first of many healthcare bills.
So how am I doing?  Really.
I never really asked the question, “Why me?”  It has no answer other than the statistics show that one in six men in the U.S. will get prostate cancer.  I never really asked, “How did this happen?”  Researchers much smarter than me are still trying to figure that out. 
And while there was some anger between the initial discovery and the diagnosis, I quickly learned that harboring such anger was a destructive waste of time and energy (plus a few people I interact with wanted to slap me silly because I was so cranky).  That doesn’t mean that it’s gone away entirely; I think I just handle it a bit better now.
So I’m not sitting here in the dark going, “Boo-hoo, woe is me.”  I have cancer.  It’s not what I would have chosen for myself, but it’s what I’ve been dealt.  I can’t change that fact. Now it’s time to deal with it.
Of course, we’re still trying to define “it.”  Tomorrow I go for my bone scan to ensure that it hasn’t metastasized and spread beyond the prostate.  They’ll squirt some radioactive juice in my veins in the morning; I go back in the afternoon for the actual scan; and I’ll glow in the dark in the evening.  (Okay, I’m making that last part up.  I think.)
The radioactive material will form “hot spots” that show up on the scan where there are problem areas.  Unfortunately, it will settle in areas of cancer as well as areas of arthritis.  So if any hot spots do show up, I anticipate there may be even further tests needed to determine if they’re arthritis or cancerous.  With more testing comes more waiting.
My appointment to learn the bone scan results is on Thursday, 18 November.
Finally, my free gift from the doctor, “100 Questions and Answers about Prostate Cancer,” has been sitting on the kitchen counter since I put it there Thursday morning on returning from his office.  It may be time that I pick that up and start reading it.

Day 3 – Escape

On By DanIn Prostate Cancer1 Comment

“Okay, so what’s up with the little ball of sunshine?” you ask. I thought it might be a quick and wacky way of indicating what kind of day it’s been for me emotionally. A sunny day = a good day; an overcast day = a crappy day. You get the idea…

Up early on a Saturday?? Moi??? Yes. A decent night’s sleep had me rolling out of bed around 6:30 AM. Determined not to even think about cancer today (okay, not think about it much!), I decided that I would do what I do best: Hop in my car and drive.

A friend at work rock climbs in the Red River Gorge of the Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky, and he suggested that I check it out. It’s about a three hour drive from here, so I found myself driving down the highway about 8 AM on an unusually warm (72 degrees) and sunny mid-November day.

The act of driving the twisting roads of the scenic byway and the search for photogenic sights kept my mind off of other matters. It was a pleasant way to spend the day.

On the way back through Cincinnati, I stopped at Jungle Jim’s market and picked up a bottle of wine and a hunk of Papillon Roquefort–not to drown my sorrows but to celebrate the day.

Cliches are cliches because there’s an element of truth to them. In an odd way, being diagnosed with cancer has made me feel more energized. Perhaps I’m beginning to follow Tim McGraw’s advice, “Live Like You Were Dying,” or even my own mom’s admonition that, “Life is not a dress rehearsal.” (Don’t take that as my believing the Grim Reaper is right around the corner–prostate cancer is highly treatable and curable, and that’s what I’m focusing on.)

I’m sure that I’ll have my down days–next week will be filled with a few of them as I wait for the bone scan results. So look for a few clouds on the horizon as I take the next step in my journey…

Day 2 – Adjusting

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So I woke up Friday morning much better rested than the previous night. That doesn’t mean that I had a full night’s sleep; just a more restful one.

One of the things that kept me tossing and turning was the upcoming bone scan test. If that shows the cancer has spread, that’s a whole new ball game that we’re dealing with. That had me on edge very early in the morning.

I went to work and quickly sought out a couple of friends whom I didn’t have the opportunity to tell on Thursday. Nothing like starting the day with:

“Good morning, how are you?”

“Okay. I have prostate cancer.”

Unfortunately, there really is no delicate way to tell someone that you have cancer. You just have to come out and say it.

I found it interesting that I really felt compelled Thursday afternoon and Friday to spread the word. Perhaps it was simply because of my own discomfort with uttering the words, “I have cancer.” As with anything, however, repetition did make it easier.

By mid-morning, I had made the last of my intended announcements and then turned my attention on the bone scan, learning the timing of its results, and scheduling a meeting with the doctor to review the results.

Oh. And I did some work, too.

By late morning, I was in a pretty good mood and more focused on what I needed to do for my job. (I still wasn’t completely focused on my job–just more focused.) I was able to convince myself not to dwell on the results of a test that hadn’t even been run yet. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

At the end of the day, I was in a really upbeat mood and decided to head to Cincinnati for dinner and a little shopping. I was in bed with lights out by 10:30 PM.