I'll begin by laying out some recent events. As I have mentioned, my PSA (prostate-specific antigen) has been on the rise, albeit slowly, for most of 2025. The main reason it's going slowly is because I remain on hormone blocking drugs, and testosterone is the food this cancer likes. I get the PSA checked every 3 months, though, and it was at least tripling every time we checked. It went from 0.2 in January to 0.65 in April to 2.14 in July. For most people, even that last number would still be considered in the "normal" range of 4.0 or less. However, given my history with this cancer, it was only going to continue to rise. It's probably at least 6.0 right now, although I not scheduled to have it checked again until the end of October.
Anyway, that recent timeline I mentioned...
- July 28 - Labs revealed the PSA of 2.14 and my oncologist decided that we need to take some action.
- August 13 - I had the expensive PET-PSMA scan done to see where the active cancer is. I talked about this in my previous post.
- August 20 - We met with my oncologist to go over the scan, at which point it was decided that it was localized enough that we would hit it with radiation instead of trying more rounds of chemo.
- September 5 - Surgical procedure to have a protective gel put in to protect "other things down there" from radiation.
- September 8 - Went in for something called a CT simulation, where they map things out in order to be able to target the cancerous area and not affect nearby parts that don't need irradiating.
Then came several weeks of nothing, with us waiting on word that I could begin radiation. They told us it would be "a couple weeks" before radiation started and claimed that this was primarily to wait for insurance approval. However, being proactive, we noticed that my insurance had approved it within days of the request. We called to get radiation scheduled sooner than later, but were told that it was still going to be "a couple weeks" without any concrete explanation. At one point, someone actually said, "That's just the way it always goes."
This waiting period came with a somewhat unexpected truckload of anxiety and depression. I was concerned, with the cancer continuing to grow, that it might start to spread again before we started any radiation treatments. Mid-September marked 8 weeks since the PSA indicated we needed to take action, and 6 weeks since my PET-PSMA scan located where it was active. In my previous post, I indicated the PET-PSMA indicated that I had "nonactive foci throughout [my] skeletal system." Would that make it easier for the cancer to spread? I asked, but no one was willing to give me an answer to this question. That just added to my anxiety.
I feel like most of September was this anxiety-filled, depression riddled waiting game. I pulled back from social media, stopped writing letters, stopped participating in many things, and generally fell into a funk of depression. The medical professionals were in such a hurry to have me do the various procedures necessary to start radiation and then... nothing. Even though I have now (just) started radiation treatments, I still have no idea if this stuff has metastacized but, if it has, radiation to one spot isn't going to knock it out.
So, on Wednesday, September 24, I was finally scheduled to go in for my first visit with radiation, where they did another kind of "mapping" session to see how well things lined up with the results of the CT simulation on the 8th. The following day, September 25, I went in for my first radiation treatment. This was just under two months after my oncologist said we should take action. "Taking action" means something very different in the medical field than it does to me.
I mentioned in my previous post that my radiologist prescribed 45 treatments. It turns out that my insurance would only approve 20 treatments. This didn't do anything to change my view of insurance companies as gatekeepers who eschew genuine medical needs in favor of monetary decisions. One might see cutting the number of treatments in half as a good thing, and it will mean I am finished with radiation sooner, but my radiologist plans to give me the same amount of radiation in 20 treatments as I would have gotten in the 45. This means that my side-effects are likely to be more intense.
Time will tell how hard this will be. I'm feeling a bit more fatigued now than before radiation started, which is noteworthy because I was already tired and weak then. Flashbacks to me barely able to take showers during chemo have come flooding back. I'm hoping for the best but anxious about it being just the opposite. As I say, time will tell.
I'll check back in after a couple/few weeks to update how it's going.
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| A beautiful 2-3 foot long eastern fox snake that was hunting in our garden in mid-September. |
