Tag: radiation oncologist

Day 3,175 – Unexpected Consult & Twisted Thinking

On By DanIn Prostate Cancer, Recurrence, Treatment6 Comments

Last Thursday, a physician came into our office (keep in mind my office is in a hospital) and was asking about how to bring a volunteer on board to shadow him in radiation oncology. Of course, my ears picked up with the “radiation oncology” part of his request.

After explaining the process to bring his volunteer on board, I asked him if Dr. W was still in radiation oncology. Dr. W was the radiation oncologist that I saw in May 2018 to discuss my rising PSA, and he told me then that he planned on retiring in the next year or so. Dr. W had, in fact, retired according to Dr. B, the physician with the volunteer question.

Dr. B asked how it was that I knew of Dr. W, so I explained that I had the consult with him for getting zapped for recurrent prostate cancer. A bit to my surprise, Dr. B started asking a question or two and, the next thing you know, we’re having a ten minute consultation in the lobby of my office.

In a nutshell:

  • His threshold for starting salvage radiation therapy for recurrent prostate cancer was when the PSA hit 0.10 ng/ml.
  • He talked of how statistically the likelihood of the cancer being in my prostate bed is pretty high. In a tangential way, he implied that having positive margins confirms that the cancer is still in the prostate bed; having negative margins, as I did, makes things slightly less certain.
  • We had a very cursory conversation about imaging technologies, but my sense was that his view of the newer technologies was more optimistic than what I’ve read about their effectiveness at my PSA level.
  • He talked about how deciding to treat is a very personal decision and that there’s no right or wrong answer. But, with a PSA of 0.10, he said that I will be dealing with this again at some point in the future and, if I wait too long, the options for dealing with it become fewer.

At the end of the conversation, he was saying a treatment decision is also based on life expectancy and overall general health. Nothing new here. If I was 85 and had a cardiac condition, he wouldn’t recommend zapping; but if I’m younger and in generally good health, he would treat. “I would get treated if it were me.”

I thanked him profusely for taking the time to have a hallway consult when he was under no obligation to do so. I told him that I have another PSA test coming up at the beginning of October, and that we’ll see what that brings.

Now for the funny part and insights into how twisted my thinking can be at times…

Dr. B’s comment about life expectancy struck a chord with me because it’s something that I often joke about.

My father died at the age of 69 and his mother also died at the age of 69, so I’ve always joked that I’ll follow in their footsteps and die at 69, too. “It’s hereditary,” I’d say. Most would find it pretty morbid and tell me to knock it off.

If you’ve been reading this blog for longer than three minutes, you know I’m a numbers guy (see post title). So on the bus ride home after speaking to Dr. B, curiosity got the better of me. I wondered how freaky it would be if my father and grandmother lived the same number of days in their 69-year lives. When I got home, I ran the numbers.

I plugged their birth and death dates into the duration calculator that I use to calculate the day number of these impromptu posts and found that they didn’t live the exact same number of days, but it was close. Dad outlived Oma by 49 days.

You know I couldn’t just leave it there.

If I live as long as my grandmother, I’ll be checking out of Hotel California on 29 July 2027. If I live as long as dad, it will be 16 September 2027. If I follow Dad’s trend an outlive him by 49 days, it will be 4 November 2027.

And then I had my “Oh, shit!” moment.

I may have less time remaining than the amount of time that I’ve been running this blog—3,029 days (best case) vs. 3,175 days.

I began to wonder what I will do in those eight remaining years. If I have only one big trip a year, what are the eight places I want to go see? How many more times will I see the people important to me if we see each other only once ever 1-3 years? How much longer will I continue to work?

I know it’s cliché as hell, but it was a bit of a wake-up call to get me off my butt and doing more than I am right now. Nothing like having a deadline to motivate you, eh?

I also know that there are no guarantees. I could get hit by a car crossing the street tomorrow, or I could live until I’m 90. I don’t dwell on any of this, but it’s nice to be reminded—albeit in a twisted way—that none of us are getting out of here alive, no matter how hard we try to avoid the inevitable, and that the days we have left should be cherished and embraced, whether in ways big or small.

Oh. If I make it to 5 November 2027, everything from then on is icing on the cake. 🙂

Month 90 – A Date with the R.O.

On By DanIn Prostate Cancer6 Comments

The week after my visit with the urologist last month, I had to relocate my office at work temporarily while the facilities team upgrades the HVAC system in our permanent offices. As I was setting up my new desk, I glanced up and saw this pinned to the bulletin board, apparently left by the previous occupant:

IMG_20180501_164755468_HDR (1)

Coincidence? Yep. But the timing couldn’t have been better.

I do believe that a positive outlook is helpful in situations like this, but with a healthy dose of reality thrown in for good measure. We can all “do our worst” in combating this disease, but the reality is that the cancer is in the driver’s seat. Yes, we can be proactive in doing our research and selecting our path, but we’re always reacting to the latest test result or the efficacy of the last treatment option.

Me doing my “worst” in the last three weeks has been slogging my way through the Veterans Affairs (VA) administrative logjams to get my appointment scheduled with the radiation oncologist. I finally got my appointment set up yesterday.

In a nutshell, the urologist forgot to hit the “submit” button for the referral. It took three weeks of emails and phone calls to figure that out, but we made it. The urologist was truly apologetic in his email to me. I get it. We’ve all made similar blunders. No harm, no foul.

My appointment is next Thursday, 17 May 2018, but there was a surprising twist in it.

All of my appointments with the urologists have been at the VA Medical Center in La Jolla (San Diego), and I was fully expecting my appointment with the radiation oncologist to be there as well. After all, it is the preeminent VA medical facility on the West Coast. Silly me.

The appointment is at Naval Medical Center San Diego. The twist? I work at Naval Medical Center San Diego—seventy-five steps (I counted) from the radiation oncology department. I pass the department twice a day on my way to or from my car, and I always thought to myself as I passed, “Someday I may be in a place like this.” Little did I know that I would be in that specific place!

Of course, the first thing we need to do is answer a boatload of questions before making the decision to get zapped. That’s the purpose of this initial consult, so I’ll be working on that list this weekend and next week.

Stay tuned.

Day 2,717 – The Discussion

On By DanIn Prostate Cancer, Recurrence12 Comments

I hate this flippin’ disease.

My discussion with my urologist went pretty much exactly as I suspected it would, but with a few twists to screw with my mind a little. One of those little twists, however, happened much earlier than the meeting.

This morning as I was shaving, there was this strong sense of fear that hit me, tying my stomach in knots. That was completely unexpected and unfounded because I had a good idea of what was going to happen with the doctor. Even so, it was something that took control and definitely set my mood for the day.

When the doctor entered the exam room, I told him about my propensity to just verbally vomit all over the doctors before they even had a chance to explain their interpretation of my results. I shut up and let him talk away (with my battery of questions at the ready on my lap).

Pretty much everything that he said were things that I already knew:

  • The increasing PSA is a concern, but the slow rate of increase is a good thing.
  • That salvage radiotherapy would be the likely next step.
  • Given my pathology and history, it’s likely that the cancer is still in the prostate fossa.
  • Starting salvage radiotherapy earlier rather than later has typically shown to have better outcomes.
  • We have no guarantee of knowing where the cancer is at, so the radiotherapy may be ineffective.
  • Current imaging technologies aren’t good enough to detect the cancer’s location.
  • There’s no cut-and-dry set of numbers that would dictate specific actions.

The one kicker that knocked me for a loop was something that he said as we were reviewing my PSA tracking chart (I had to bring a copy of that, of course). He did mention the possibility that what we’re tracking may actually be benign prostatic tissue left behind that’s causing the PSA to rise. His reasoning was the fact that it took 54 months for the PSA to become detectable again and its slow rise ever since. He suspected that if the cancer was returning, the PSA would be climbing more rapidly. That, of course, would be great news. He didn’t assign a probability to his theory being right, however.

He did ask if I would be open to a referral to a radiation oncologist to at least begin the discussion and get educated. I said that, if he hadn’t suggested it, I was going to request it, so, yes, I was open to the referral. I don’t have an appointment on the calendar for that yet—they should call in the next few days.

I did mention the PSMA imaging trial that’s going on at UCLA and he was supportive of me looking into it. He cautioned, though that it is a trial and there’s no way to know yet how effective it may be. To be honest, it’s been a while since I looked at the trial page and I’m not sure that I would qualify to participate if it’s still ongoing. Something to dig into.

Lastly, he said there’s no need for urgent action at the moment. We’ll continue the four-month PSA test cycle for now. That will have me in the lab the first week of August.

When you get your care through the Veterans Administration (VA), as I do, you rarely see the same doctor twice. I mentioned that to this urologist and commented that, in a way, it’s a good thing because I’m getting multiple opinions and perspectives. He was taken aback by that comment, saying, “That’s a charitable view. I usually hear the opposite.”

He’s the second doctor who’s mentioned the possibility of this being nothing more than benign prostate tissue left behind that’s causing the PSA to return and rise. Perhaps I need to put a little more stock in that theory. But after spending two years wrapping my head around the notion that the cancer is returning—a mentally and emotionally exhausting exercise—when you hear something like this, it really screws with your mind. Or at least it does mine. It’s one more variable added to an ocean of uncertainty when you’re desperately seeking solid land.

The good thing is that I have time, and time may bring a little more clarity on which to base a decision at some point in the future. In the meantime, I’ll just don my kapok life preserver and bob around in that ocean of uncertainty reflecting on how much I hate this flippin’ disease. (Yes, I’m dating myself with the kapok reference.)