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| (What you can't really see here are the dozens of pollinators flitting around those flowers.) |
Since I ended chemotherapy, late last year, I have "check-up" appointments with my oncologist every three months, with bloodwork done a few days before. I mentioned in my last post that my April bloodwork revealed my PSA (Prostate-Specific Antigen, the blood marker for prostate cancer) had gone from 0.2 at the start of this year to 0.65. While that is still well within the "normal" range for PSA (4.0 or less) it worried me because it had tripled in three months. My oncologist told me not to panic, and that we'd only start talking about more treatments if it got up past 2.0.
Three months after that, my PSA registered 2.14, meaning that it had (more than) tripled again, Cancer was clearly still growing, somewhere, and we should start to investigate where and how much. My oncologist put in an order for an expensive PET-PSMA scan, something my insurance balked a bit about when one was requested at the start of this nightmare in the spring of 2024. I expected more balking this time, but the scan was approved right away and we were able to schedule it within a week. I just had that scan on Wednesday (8/13) but won't know the results until we meet with my oncologist next Wednesday (8/20).
One thing is clear: I will need more treatments.
The thought of this depresses me. Although I've been trying to exercise and stay as active as I am able, I'm still nowhere near what anyone could call "recovered" from the cancer-and-chemo induced trauma from last year. The exercise has been helping, and I do feel like I've been getting stronger, but I still have numerous maladies and physical limitations. For example, on any given day when I have some sort of event on the calendar, that one thing is about all I can do that day. I haven't had a day when I've felt up to doing two or three activities (okay, maybe super low energy level activities like doctor's appointments) since before my diagnosis. Also, when I do have the energy to participate in something more enjoyable than a medical appointment, I'm only good for a couple hours before I wear out.
I've been tolerating this because, well, because I don't have much of a choice. Beyond that, though, the thought that has been keeping me feeling positive (most of the time) is that I am s-l-o-w-l-y getting better. In my mind, better days were ahead, I just needed to help bring them on by exercising and staying positive. Throughout most of June and July, I've been feeling like I could see the "old me" on the horizon, and it was a welcome sight to see. The regrowth of some of the cancer and subsequent discussion of more treatments has pretty much drained me of any such positive outlook.
In the past few weeks, my energy level has gone way down. I find more difficulty in getting out of bed and, much more often than in the preceding months, I have trouble motivating myself to do exercise on my little home gym. I feel so tired, most of the time, that I don't even feel like trying to do things. At first, I was writing this off as the fault of cancer regrowth, but the more my wife and I talk about it the more I realize at least some of it is rooted in depression.
Whether or not I have to go through chemo again (an absolute nightmare last time) will be determined by my oncologist's take on the scan I just had. We've already talked about this, pre-scan, and we're all hoping that the growth is happening in a single location (or two) that can be irradiated. I'm also somewhat encouraged that this oncologist -- a different doctor than the one with whom I started this nightmare journey -- is up on current research and willing to discuss a variety of treatment options.
Still, I think I spent the first half of this year thinking that I was on a slow road to recovery. I could see it and I could feel it. If I needed more treatments of any sort, it would be a couple years away.
Not, as it turns out, right now.
