More Cancer, Possible Clinical Trial

It seems like I'm going longer and longer between updates here. I wish that was because things are improving and there isn't as much to write about. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. I think I'm just not writing because I'm becoming more and more discouraged.

Adrenal Gland Radiation 

During the last half of March, I had five sessions of fairly intense radiation to my left adrenal gland. Back in February, I mentioned that scans had revealed cancer growth there. This radiation ended on March 31, but put me more out of commission than any of the previous radiation treatments I'd had. I felt rotten for most of April! When we read about the effects of losing an adrenal gland, this made more sense. It took many of the side-effects (fatigue, weakness, digestive issues, etc.) that I would have felt from radiation alone and amplified them. To make matters worse, I felt so crappy in April that I didn't feel I had it in me to exercise, so that just added to the problem.

They say that it could take a month or two for the other adrenal gland to "pick up the slack" of the dead one. For me it was at least a month, only starting to feel better by small degrees in the first weeks of May.

Lymph Node Radiation 

Meanwhile, I had a biopsy done on a lump under my chin that three different medical professionals (the person reading my most recent scan at that point, my oncologist, and my Ear, Nose & Throat doctor) did not think was cancer. The biopsy was a just-in-case kind of thing, given my recent history. When the results came back a few days later, sure enough, a lymph node under my chin on the right side was full of cancer. Since this was a very specific area, we decided it was best to go back in for radiation of that.

Just to provide a sense of how frustratingly slow the world of medicine works in the United States, we discovered this lump under my chin during a scan I had on January 14, my biopsy of this lymph node wasn't until April 13, I couldn't get in for a CT Simulation (a sort of radiation mapping & planning session) until May 13, and I just had my first radiation treatment to that lymph node today, June 10. There has been cancer growing in this lymph node for at least five months before anything is being done about it. Whenever the wait is that long, I worry so much about how much an aggressive cancer like mine is spreading from that point.

A Clinical Trial, possibly 

I had good reason to worry. My oncologist started to suspect that my cancer had either mutated or become resistant to the ways we were attacking it. In May, I ended up having some more specialized bloodwork and scans. Meanwhile, my oncologist started discussing my case with a prostate cancer specialist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Sure enough, one of the scans revealed some more diffuse spreading of cancer in my neck and shoulders. If someone were to tell me that this had come from the cancerous lymph node that had been let go for so long, I'd believe them. 

The problem with more diffuse spreading of the cancer, though, is that radiation is no longer a reasonable option. The word "chemotherapy" was back on the table. This made my heart sink since I had such a terrible experience with chemotherapy back in 2024. The oncologist in Madison suggested we see if I was eligible for a clinical trial: Group 1 would get a new chemo drug being tested but showing promise as having fewer side effects. Group 2 would get Docetaxel, which was the chemo drug I was on in 2024 and had such a hard time. (Probably 90% of the known side-effects. It was absolutely miserable.)

On June 3, my wife and I went up to Madison (about an hour north of us) to meet with that oncologist, the clinical trial coordinator, and have some bloodwork done. I'm due to go back up on June 17 for several scans. My impression of where we are now is that two things need to happen for me to get in on this trial. 1 - I have to study the literature and decide if I want to participate. 2 - The scans and bloodwork all have to warrant me eligible to participate. I would imagine both of those things will be decided in the next couple weeks.

If I enter this clinical trial, it will mean trips up to Madison every three weeks for months and months. (They say, "up to two years".) This Phase 3 clinical trial is what they call, "open label", meaning I will know which group I'm in, but in some ways that makes the decision more difficult. If I'm stuck in Group 2 getting Docetaxel again, I could easily receive that drug, and at a 20% reduction from last time, just 15 minutes away at the UW Cancer Center in Beloit. As a participant in the trail, I'd need to drive up to Madison every three weeks to get a full dose of Docetaxel.

I am so genuinely torn about what to do, and so terribly depressed at the fact that, every time we manage to put out one cancer "fire", another one has already started up somewhere else. It's not difficult to feel a significant sense of doom here.

 

Not An Anniversary To Celebrate

TL;DR? I'm still alive but what's keeping me alive comes at a cost. 

March 12 marks two years since I got my cancer diagnosis. Stage 4, metastatic, terminal, etc. I'm not celebrating, obviously, although I'm certainly celebrating still being alive. I just thought this would be a good time for a kind of 'State of My Health' update. Almost all of this has been mentioned in previous blog posts, here and there, but this will hopefully take things out of the daily details and provide an overview of where I am and what got me here.

The initial attack of a prostate cryoablation followed by intense chemotherapy, back in 2024, worked fairly well to fight the aggressive cancer that was taking over my body. I started this nightmare with a PSA = Prostate Specific Antigen of over 100. (There was no sign of anything like that at a checkup the year before.) After the initial, multi-frontal, and honestly brutal attack mentioned above, my PSA was reduced to 0.2... well on the sunny side of the "normal" range of 0-4. 

Unfortunately, during 2025, that number started to go up again, although thankfully not nearly as quickly. The culprit turned out to be some cancer growth in my prostate bed. (The cryoablation had killed the prostate and the cancer within it, so this could be considered "residual" if such terms mattered when you're talking about cancer.) In September and October of 2025, I underwent a course of double-dose radiation to the area in question.

Although we believe that this knocked out the remaining cancer in the prostate bed, my PSA was still increasing, ever so slightly, and approaching the very top of that 0-4 range. A more recent scan revealed cancer growing in my left adrenal gland and maybe my right salival gland. The doctors interpreting my scan results postulated that the latter may simply be a blocked salival gland that lit up on the scan. They referred me to an Ear, Nose & Throat doctor to investigate that, while prepping me for radiation to the adrenal gland. After all the ups and downs of insurance pickiness and scheduling availability, I had my first radiation treatment to the adrenal gland yesterday and am scheduled to have a sonogram of the area of my salival gland tomorrow. 

Hormone Deprivation Therapy 

A type of chemotherapy that I started back in 2024 is still ongoing. Testosterone is the "food" this type of cancer feeds on, so they put me on two medications to keep my testosterone as low as possible. Starve the stuff.

• Eligard - Once every three months since this nightmare began, I go in to get an injection of a drug called Eligard. Sometimes referred to as "chemical castration", this time-release injection is designed to stop the production of testosterone by my body.

• Aberaterone/Xtandi - These are very large pills that I take once a day to inhibit any hormone receptors for testosterone that "get by" the Eligard. I was on Aberaterone since my diagnosis and just recently switched over to Xtandi a little over a month ago. Both drugs appear to do the same thing, my oncologist just didn't want my body to become complacent with the same drug.

The unfortunate side effect of trying to keep my testosterone as close to zero as possible is that I've lost a LOT of muscle mass, and I'm always tired. Sooo tired. Earlier in 2025, I was hoping that the extreme fatigue had more to do with how (infusion) chemotherapy had ravaged my body, and that I would eventually push past it and feel more energetic, but time has showed me that it had/has much more to do with depriving my body of testosterone. That, I will need to do for the duration.

The choice between hormone deprivation making me tired/weak all the time and letting the cancer take over and kill me is a no brainer, of course. It's just been really hard to get used to the "new normal" of never having much energy. On good days, I can muster enough to be active, but only for a while. Expending energy on anything, I no longer get tired by degrees. I hit a wall instead. My wife says that I fall off a(n energy) cliff. I can expend energy on something and then, suddenly, I'm done. Absolutely wiped-out done. It's weird and it's frustrating.

I think about how I used to go out with crews from a local land trust and help with prescribed burns across multiple acres of land. That sort of thing is now off the table. Can I handle what used to be a typical 3-6 mile hike in one of our forest preserves? Not now. I could probably handle kayaking but loading and unloading all the gear would finish me off before I even get in the water. Bike rides might be feasible because we own pedal-assist ebikes. I was able to take some nice rides in the summer of 2025 and seemed to do okay. No big 50-mile rides, by any means, but 10-20 are probably in the cards. Eventually.

I have a small home gym, and I work on building my strength that way whenever I haven't already done something that's tired me out. I'm getting some exercise and, hopefully, building back some of the muscle mass that I lost. It's all a pale shadow of how I was before my diagnosis but, again, I'm happy to be alive and to at least be able to do some living. 

A more vain downside to depriving me of testosterone is that my hair doesn't grow much since it all fell out in 2024. More than a year after the nasty infusion chemotherapy and I still have no eyebrows or chest hair, my beard grew back to a stubble and seems to remain there, and I can go for months without needing a a haircut. When I do get it cut, it's just a matter of thinning bit here and trimming a bit there. 

Dem Bones

The results of a full body scan that I had in August 2025 revealed not only the remaining active cancer that we needed to attack, but included a statement that has stuck in my head ever since I read it. "Patient has nonactive foci throughout his skeletal system." Basically, between my diagnosis and the time chemotherapy was able to take effect on the cancer growing in me, it had spread to my entire skeletal system. I'm grateful that what the scan saw was nonactive cancer, but it does make me worry about the possibility for some or all of it to go active again.

That worry aside, the spread of this stuff to my bones has weakened them significantly. So, another form of chemotherapy that's still with me are monthly shots of something called Prolia or denosumab. Essentially, this is the sort of medicine they give to people with osteoporosis. What it does is help strengthen my bones by pulling calcium from my bloodstream. 

Since I do not have an overabundance of calcium in my blood in the first place, I need to take 1200mg of a calcium supplement, daily, as supply for the Prolia to put into my bones. There's already vitamin D3 in the calcium that I take, to help absorb it, but I also take vitamin K2 to assist the absorption. Everything except the Prolia is an over-the-counter supplement, but there's a whole lineup of pills I need to take just to keep my bones from breaking. 

More Drugs

Some other daily drugs I can't seem to go without, and the afflictions they're fighting:

• Ropinerole - The infusion chemotherapy in 2024 left me with nerve damage. It's most noticeable in some neuropathy in my toes, occasional weird and unprovoked twitching here and there and, the absolute worst, restless leg syndrome. I swear, if RLS was something that could be controlled, it would be a very effective method of torture. My palliative care specialist prescribed Ropinerole for me and it's been very effective against RLS. Unfortunately, if I ever miss a dose, I am quickly reminded of how much I still need to take this daily.

• Pepcid/Famotadine - Early on, the stress brought on by knowing that I had terminal cancer gave me a peptic ulcer. I tried to battle it with mild antacids but I got no relief. My urologist told me that I could take up to 40mg of Famotadine (the active ingredient in Pepcid) twice a day and it seems to keep the monster at bay. Well, that and avoiding things like overly spicy foods and my beloved single malt scotch. (I haven't had a drop of scotch or any other hard liquor since I developed the ulcer, and it would be an understatement to say that I missed it.) I have occasionally been able to reduce the amount of Famotadine that I'm taking but one slightly spicy meal and I'm miserable again.

• Oxybutenin - It turns out that reducing hormone production for either sex will result in hot flashes. I had only ever heard of women having hot flashes but, if you mess with a man's testosterone, it can bring on hot flashes. I've dialed it in to where I only need one 5mg Oxybutenin per day to keep the hot flashes (mostly) at bay. As with the other two drugs above, if I try to reduce my dosage, the symptoms remind me of what a bad idea that is.

It's the Little Things

In my pre-cancer days, I would occasionally have a bad headache, inexplicable pain somewhere, weird stomach, and so on. Like many people, it would be a cause for concern for a little bit but, when it went away or at least didn't get any worse, I'd stop worrying about it. Since my diagnosis, any time this happens, I'm filled with anxiety about it. Is this more cancer growth? Is the cancer eating away at something that's causing this new discomfort? Is the cancer this? Does the cancer that? These days, if anything at all doesn't feel like it did the day before, I automatically worry that something terrible is happening.

So there it is; the state of me two years after my diagnosis. I've spent some time thinking that I'd eventually "get better" (not cured of cancer but at least physically back to some semblance of pre-cancer Rob) but, with no small amount of mental struggle about this, I'm forcing myself to try to find some sort of contentment in this "new normal". I'm trying to make peace with the idea that where I am now is quite possibly as good as it's going to get. I know from experience that fighting that -- continuing to think that I'll eventually return to the way I was before 2024 -- only brings anger and frustration. I don't want to be angry and frustrated with my days, no matter how many or few I have left.

 A photo from February 7, 2024 on one of the last hikes my wife and I took before I got sick. Seward Bluffs Forest Preserve

Hopefully, A Treatment Plan

I'm pleased to report that, after that whirlwind week with far too much on my plate, things have slowed down yet not come to a standstill.

There was some doubt as to whether or not we would be able to get the CT simulation (mapping for radiation treatments) at our appointment with Radiation Oncology on February 18. At that point, instead of giving me an actual appointment for the CT sim on the 18th, they claimed they would "hold a spot" for some time that afternoon. Rather "sus" as the kids say these days. When we came in for the appointment on the 18th we pushed a bit, sternly reminding them that we were scheduled for the CT sim on the 9th and were "promised" it would happen on the 18th. 

It worked. We had labs/bloodwork done (the first using my new chemo port), then saw the RadOnc nurse practitioner, then saw the main RadOnc doctor*, then they did the CT simulation, all punctuated with lots of wait time in exam rooms. My 12:30 appointment ended up taking the better part of that afternoon and, I swear, 50% of that was waiting. I'm glad we got it all done, though. Good to be moving forward.

* My Radiation Oncologist's name is Xanthopolis, but most people (including other medical professionals) refer to him as "Dr. X". Personally, I don't find Xanthopolis hard to pronounce or remember, but I smile every time I think that everyone calls my  Radiologist "Dr. X".

The following day, we returned to the Cancer Center to meet with my MedOnc doctor and go over both the results of the bloodwork and review our steps going forward.

Earlier, I mentioned that a PET CT scan showed some possible activity in? on? my left adrenal gland and right salivary gland. Both specialists that I'm seeing are leaning toward a benignly blocked salivary gland, so they referred me to an Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) doctor. 

That turned out to be rather fortuitous because I've been wrestling with diminished hearing due to ear wax buildup. (I've had issues with that since long before my cancer diagnosis.) Lately, I've been treating it with daily applications of hydrogen peroxide, but the buildup just seemed to laugh at that. It had gotten pretty bad... for most of last week, my hearing was that of someone about 10 feet under water. 

I just saw the ENT today. A physical examination of the area of my salivary gland didn't raise any red flags, so he's going to put in a request with the almighty insurance company to do an ultrasound of that part of my jaw. I know how this goes... The insurance company's AI will deny it at first, then the doctor will have to appeal it, then (hopefully) it will be accepted, then I'll get a call to schedule the test. 

The best part of the ENT visit, though, was having my ears cleaned! They had gotten so bad that I was unable to enjoy listening to music and wasn't engaging in conversations. I feel like I've got super-human hearing now in comparison!

We are also currently waiting to hear back from the almighty insurance company regarding the request for radiation treatments to my left adrenal gland. Same process; The expert (our doctor) puts in the request, their AI denies it blindly, the doctor has to appeal the decision then, hopefully, we get the go-ahead to schedule treatments. 

I wonder how many people are dying or at least getting a lot more sick while they wait for this stupid chess game to play out. The time between the original request and actually being "approved" for the treatment can now be several weeks. How often does a sick person have several weeks to waste before getting treatment?

Frustration with the delays of the health insurance industry aside, I'm grateful that things are finally starting to move. We knew we were dealing with more cancer growth as far back as October 2025. There was almost no movement toward even diagnosing the problem in November and December, and the stagnation filled me with anxiety and depression. The ball started rolling again in mid-January and, with any luck, we'll start treating it by March. I still wish I didn't have to deal with any of this but, accepting my circumstances, the recent activity feels much better than the depressing lull of the previous few months.

Taken after the same ice storm as the shot from the previous post, only much less abstract.

 

Nothing ... then EVERYTHING

In recent updates, I've mentioned that almost nothing happened (in terms of both diagnosis or treatment) in November, December, and the first part of January. This brought some significant depression with it since we all knew that some cancer was still growing, and that my cancer is an aggressive kind.

Things started to move with a PET CT (Positron Emission Tomography and Computed Tomography) scan on January 14, bloodwork on the 22nd, and an appointment with my oncologist on the 26th. Then, in the first week of February, it was like the medical floodgates opened...

• M 2/2 - 6 month check-up with my General Practitioner
• Tu 2/3 - Visit with dentist to have a cavity filled
• W 2/4 - Meet with the cardiac surgeon who installed my chemo port*
• Th 2/5 - Face-to-face consultation at the Cancer Center about a new med 
• F 2/6 - Double surgery* to remove a chemo port and install a new one
• Sa 2/7 - My monthly Prolia injections for bone strength

*Wednesday's appointment with the cardiac surgeon ended up taking the whole afternoon at the hospital. At first, upon visual inspection, he did not feel there was anything wrong with my port, despite it being very stubborn at the last 2-3 blood draws and a scan indicating that it might be leaking. As a "let's just make sure" measure, he sent me downstairs to have a scan done specifically of the port after a tracer was injected. 

I could tell that something was up because I overheard the person doing the scan using words like "leak" and "occlusion". I was sent back up to meet with the cardiac surgeon again, where he informed me that the old port would indeed need to come out and that he would install a new on on the other side of my chest. He said he wanted to do this on Friday but, since nothing really moves that fast in my medical universe, I took that with a huge grain of salt.

He was serious, though, because he started having us run all over the hospital for various pre-surgery stuff like a COVID-19 test and a (second) chest x-ray. Our original appointment was for 1:30 in the afternoon but we didn't get out of that hospital until around 5 pm. On one hand, it was great that they could just have me do all that stuff while we were already at the hospital, but it was also frustrating that an appointment that should have been about an hour ended up being over three times that.

We had a 7:30 arrival time for surgery prep. Even though I am allergic to mornings, I was a good boy and showed up on time. Well, okay, mostly thanks to my dear wife. The surgery was scheduled for 9 am but I didn't end up going in to surgery until around 10 am. Once the anesthesia took me to la-la-land, they removed the faulty chemo port inside my chest on the right side and installed a new one on the left side. It must have all gone reasonably well because I'm still here to type about it. I think we got out of there around noon, after which I just convalesced (and slept) on the couch for the rest of the day. 

 

Last week was definitely a case of "be careful what you wish for". I went from being depressed that no one was doing anything for months to, "Holy shit! Can we please slow down?!" I've been very tired since. I know part of that is my body recovering from surgery and using energy to heal the wounds, but I'm certain that part of increased fatigue is just how much medical stuff was packed into that week. 

My new med arrived on Thursday of that week, but I decided to wait to take it until the day after the surgery. It's a new hormone receptor blocker, so that is probably contributing to my fatigue.

One more thing. In my last post, I mentioned having an appointment on February 9 for a CT simulation, which is kind of like a mapping session prior to radiation treatments. Treatments typically begin a couple weeks after that. We got a call from the Cancer Center that they needed to cancel that appointment and come in for a consultation appointment on February 18. We wanted to get put on the books for the CT sim on the 18th, then, so we wouldn't have to wait even longer. (We knew by December that we had more cancer to kill. We suspected it as far back as October.) They've definitely got me down for that consultation on the 18th, but I've got my doubts as to whether or not that CT sim will also happen that day. Time will tell. 

If the CT sim happens on the 18th, there's still a chance I could start radiation by the end of February. If not, we'll be well into March before I can start treatments. This will be about three months after we saw a need for them.

Quick Update

Just a quick update with news from the appointment with the oncologist. He no longer feels that my rising PSA is coming from a mutation of the original cancer. That's good, because the very idea of that seemed like a whole new can of worms to me. My latest PSA is 4.46 so it's still rising but (thankfully) not yet exponentially like it was in 2024.

My latest scan showed two potentially active (cancerous) areas: my left-side adrenal gland and my right-side salivary gland. The oncologist as well as the MD who first read my scan results suspect that the salivary gland issue might have more to do with my chemo port leaking. So, here are our next steps...

- 1 -  My oncologist wants the cardiac surgeon who put in my chemo port to evaluate what's going on there. I've now got an appointment with him on February 4. After this evaluation, I would most likely be looking at surgery to repair or replace the chemo port. If the surgeon decides that the problem is not a leaky port, we'll have to re-evaluate and possibly start radiation treatments up there as well. (My chemo port is in my upper chest, above and to the right of my heart, left of my shoulder.)

- 2 -  I have an appointment with radiology on February 9 to have the CT simulation of the adrenal gland area. This gives the radiation oncologist a template to accurately target the specific area to be irradiated. It's how they decide what to program into the machine, basically.

- 3 -  Some time in the weeks after that, I should start radiation treatments to the left adrenal gland. This is assuming, of course, that my insurance company's AI decision maker* doesn't deny the request. Six months ago, I wouldn't have been concerned about this.

- 4 -  My oncologist also wants to change one of my medications. I am currently on two medications to keep my testosterone as low as possible. One is a timed-release injection that I get every three months which works to stop my body from producing testosterone. The other is a pair of large pills that I take every morning to block the cells from being able to use any testosterone that may be in my system. This latter med is called Aberaterone and my doctor suspects that it might not have the same efficacy that it once did. That's the one we're changing, assuming my insurance doesn't deny it. (It should be a simple, lateral move, but who knows if the AI currently making all my health decisions* will see it that way.)

That's the plan. 

I have to give kudos to my oncologist because he always wants to get stuff done right away. He insisted I get the CT simulation appointment on the calendar before I left today, he sent a message to my cardiac surgeon and put in the new med request after we left this afternoon. He has rarely been the reason I have to wait on things. The insurance and other doctors appointment schedules seem to be where things get delayed. We'll just have to see how quickly (or not) the aforementioned plan plays out. More on all that later.

 

*I asked my oncologist, point blank, if he noticed any uptick in how often he had to submit appeals for things denied by insurance companies. He said it's happening now far more often than it ever has. Our health insurance companies definitely have their AI set to deny. I would imagine this will be standard practice across the board within just a few months, if it's not already. For everything we pay to these corporations they should, at the very least, be using humans to make our health care decisions. 

Ninety Days of Cancer Limbo

It's been a while... 

Unfortunately, especially for anyone looking to these posts to catch up on my situation, I kind of abandoned this blog for the past couple months. It wasn't intentional but three factors have played equal roles. First, medically speaking, things have kind of been in limbo with very little forward movement, much to my frustration. In addition, I got pretty depressed by it all and also so tired of talking about everything that was wrong with me. I still kept a handwritten journal with daily entries, though, so I'll attempt to catch up with entries that I made there.

My last blog entry was from mid-October and I was somewhere around the middle of a month's worth of fairly intense (double dose) radiation treatments. I wrote about being tired a lot, but also that the days were punctuated by random days with more energy. As the treatments progressed past what I had written here, the fatigue got worse, as did the internal side-effects of the radiation. The better-energy days still occurred, but less often. My (paper) journal contains a lot of entries about being "wiped out" during the second half of that treatment schedule.

After my last blog entry, my wife started driving me to the treatments, just to take something off my plate. It was a simple gesture but so very much appreciated. One aspect of the radiation therapy that I didn't expect to grow to despise was how I needed to hyper-hydrate myself before each daily treatment. No exaggeration here: I had to drink about 40 ounces of water and not get rid of it during the two hours prior to a treatment. There were times when I was literally lying on the table inside the tube, feeling like I was going to burst. I never had any accidents but I did have a couple close calls. The trouble was not only how much water I was ingesting but also how all the swelling "down there" was making me feel like I had to "go" even when I wasn't actively hydrating.

I should note that this need to be over-hydrated is somewhat unique to prostate radiation. It was necessary so that my bladder wasn't also radiated during treatments.

In my (paper) journal I wrote about how, "bodily functions have become increasingly difficult, uncomfortable, and immediate." I won't go into any more detail but suffice it to say that October was a very uncomfortable month. My last radiation treatment was on October 22 but all those uncomfortable side-effects stayed with me for several weeks to a month later. (I was quite relieved to be done with the hyper-hydrating, though.)

At the end of the month, I had some bloodwork done and met with my oncologist about the results. My PSA had slowed from its pattern of tripling every time we checked it but it had still gone up from the level that prompted the recommendation for radiation treatments in the first place. My oncologist suspected that the increased PSA might be a reaction to the radiation that he called "tumor flare" and asked me to have labs done again in a month to see how things might have changed. Due to the Thanksgiving holiday and subsequent scheduling issues, I wasn't able get in again for bloodwork until December 2 and we met with my oncologist on December 4. My PSA was 3.27 at the end of October and continued to rise to 3.54 when we checked again in early December. The rise wasn't alarming but it was still a rise. Cancer was still growing somewhere.

The oncologist mentioned several possible issues, including a mutation of the original cancer that wasn't generating PSA as rapidly. Since he was just hypothesizing he insisted that, before I left that day (12/4) I have some labwork done that was different and more specialized than our usual focus. He also put in a request for a different kind of PET scan than I had previously. My insurance company denied that at first (it's a very expensive scan) which freaked me out. Thankfully, my oncologist appealed the denial and it eventually went through. 

From the 50(+) Yard Line

On Wednesday, I had my 10th radiation treatment of 20, so I thought this would be a good time for a brief update.

Week 1 (partial) 

Previously, I mentioned that my radiation oncologist prescribed 45 daily radiation treatments, but my insurance company would only approve 20. The workaround turned out to be that I'd get twice the radiation at each session. I don't know how typical that is but the only red flags I could see was that I'd be hit with side effects sooner and more intensely. I started on a Thursday, so really didn't feel much of anything leading up to that first weekend after only two treatments. 

That Thursday, by the way, was packed with stuff that was already on the calendar before I got the call about a radiation schedule. I mention this because I think the stress of that day, combined with the anxiety of starting radiation, caused me to have a very fatigued Saturday. Here I was, looking forward to what might be my last decent (health-wise) weekend of October, but Saturday proved to be a rude awakening. 

I felt completely drained of energy on that first Saturday. I spent a fair portion of it on the couch, managing only laundry and a shower for activity. Expecting the same again on Sunday, I was pleasantly surprised to have enough energy to spend some quality time in the garden with my wife and work in the barn (workshop) for a little bit. 

Week 2 (5 treatments)

Unfortunately, and I could see this on the calendar, the following Monday and Tuesday were packed with appointments, meetings, and chores in addition to the radiation treatments. Most of these had been scheduled before I had a radiation schedule. By Wednesday (October 1st - treatment #5) I could feel some (more*) fatigue kicking in. The rest of the week was up and down, sometimes feeling quite tired and sometimes feeling it only slightly.

*I say "(more)" fatigue because they've still got me on hormone blockers, so feeling tired and weak became my "new normal" long before anyone started talking about radiation. Then, of course, people started talking about radiation because the cancer growing again. That alone has a noticeable weakening effect. My Fatigue Trifecta was complete with start of radiation treatments.

So far, so ... acceptable, and the weekend (without radiation) was right around the corner! 

Little did I know that I would spend almost the entire weekend on the couch, completely zapped of any energy. Sunday was worse than Saturday, and included a 6 a.m. wake-up call for some intense lower abdomen pain and no small amount of nausea. It's also important to note that my body clock thinks 6 a.m. is the middle of the night. Even after managing to get back to bed (with a lot of help from my dear wife) I eventually woke up exhausted and carried that with me the rest of the day.

My "free" weekend was officially a bust, although the creators of several good woodworking videos on YouTube might not feel the same.

Week 3

• Monday - RT (radiation treatment) #8: Completely wiped out. Couch-bound incapacitated.
• Tuesday - RT #9: Tired but much more energy than the previous 3-4 days.
• Wednesday - RT #10: Completely wiped out again. Truly next-level fatigue. Difficult-to-find-the-energy-for-a-shower kind of fatigue. Brought my cane back out from last year. Went to bed hours earlier than normal. 
• Thursday - RT #11: A bit more energy than Wednesday but not by much. Went to the RT then did almost nothing else the rest of the day. I had to skip a meeting because my brain couldn't hold a thought to get through a sentence in addition to the way my body felt. (Mental fatigue as well? oh yay)
• Friday - RT#12: Today. Each Friday, I am to meet with my radiation oncologist. I'm grateful for that because it allows me to check in and for my doctor to trouble-shoot side effects. However, I noticed that I felt extra crappy after the treatment today. By the time we were talking to the doctor

 

If anyone happens to be re-reading this and notice that this entry isn't the same, it's because I accidentally published an earlier draft but don't see any way of getting my final draft back. 

The Nuking Has Begun

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 since this cancer thrives on testosterone. 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 disease, it was only going to continue to rise ... exponentially. 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... 

• July 28 - Labs revealed the PSA of 2.14 and my oncologist decided that we need to take action.
• August 13 - I had an expensive PET-PSMA scan done to locate the active cancer. 
• 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 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 minimize the effect on nearby parts that aren't cancerous.

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 20 treatments 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 wrote that the PET-PSMA report indicated I had "nonactive foci throughout [my] skeletal system." Would that make it easier for the cancer to spread? I asked, at least twice, but no one was willing to give me an answer to this question. The silence just added to my anxiety.

I feel like most of September was this anxiety-filled, depression-riddled waiting game. I realize now that I have a tendency to circle the wagons when I get down about something. September saw me pulling back from social media, not writing letters, ceasing participation in many things, as I 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. If it has, radiation to one spot isn't going to knock it out. 

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 had my first actual 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. 

My previous post mentioned 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. (How did these for-profit corporations become such pivotal linchpins in everyone's health care?) 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 barely able to take showers during chemo have loomed prominently in my mind. I'm hoping for the best but anxious about it being just the opposite. Throughout this nightmare, I feel like the "possible side effects" have been soft-pedaled to me. As I say, though, time will tell. 

I'll check back in after a couple/few weeks to update how it's going.

A beautiful 2-3 foot long eastern fox snake that was hunting in our garden.

Into Battle Once More

This is an update on some of the unknowns I wrote about in my previous entry. The results of my second PET-PSMA scan have come back and we met with my oncologist on August 20. 

My first PET-PSMA scan occurred on March 27, 2024, prior to receiving any form of treatments to battle the cancer. The scan showed a concentration of cancer in my prostate, plus metastasis (spreading cancer cells) in my hips, a spot on my ribcage, a spot on my shoulder, and a spot on my spine. 

I'm bringing this back up because I was shocked to find that this disease spread like wildfire throughout my skeletal system after that scan until the chemotherapy and hormone suppressants started to take effect. The written report from my second scan (8/14/25) states the following: "Widespread, nonactive foci of osteoblastic metastasis now noted throughout the skeletal system which has significantly progressed since previous study." Of course, the word "nonactive" is the imperative there, referring to the state of the cancer. I sure hope it stays that way because, apparently, my entire skeleton is riddled with "nonactive" cancer cells. If those ever become active again, I believe that will be the end of this story. 

I'm trying, very hard, not to think about that. 

If there was "good" news from the latest scan, its that the cancer that's currently active was found only in my prostate. My oncologist feels that we can avoid more chemotherapy (for now) and hit the focus of activity with radiation treatments. I was glad to hear that, but was taken aback when my radiologist said that we would need 45 radiation treatments, one each day of the week (Monday through Friday) for nine weeks. It's not like there aren't any side-effects from radiation, so this is going to take me down several notches. I keep reminding myself that at least they're not recommending chemo, but that thought only helps a little. 

At of the time of this post, we have yet to schedule those radiation treatments. There are a couple things that need to happen first. On September 5, I'm scheduled to have a procedure where they inject a kind of gel that's supposed to protect certain vital functions "down there" from being irradiated. Then, on September 8, we have an appointment for a CT Simulation, which is where they make a map of the area to focus in on specifically where they want the radiation to hit. Shortly after that, I assume, I'll begin the treatments.

Emotionally, I'm not nearly as relieved to set chemo aside as I thought I would be. To be clear, I am relieved, but I have this sinking feeling that nine weeks of daily radiation treatments is going to take its own kind of toll on my health, such as it currently is. I suppose it boils down to the fact that I was only just starting to feel partially recovered from last year's intense chemo and now I have to somehow mentally prepare to take several steps backward. 

One could argue that, hey, at least I'm still alive, but the quality of my life pales in comparison to where I was in 2023 and earlier. I can only hope that, by the time the radiation treatments have ended some time in November, I can finally start taking steps toward living a more normal life. That's the hope I'm clinging to, anyway. 

A ruby-throated hummingbird foraging for nectar in our garden

Here we go again?

(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. 

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I haven't updated this blog/journal since the 1st of February so, now that I'm six months out from chemotherapy, it seemed like a good time for an update. I've had just as many ups as downs since my last update, which is what prompted me to steal my title here from that old spaghetti western starring Clint Eastwood.

The Good:

• My physical therapy sessions lasted from January through March, and our main focus was on balance, lower body strength, and mobility. I was a good boy about this, attending nearly every scheduled session (usually twice a week) and being fairly diligent about my homework exercises. It helped a lot. I won't claim to have the balance that I did before cancer but I feel a lot better about all aspects here.
  

• Some time during my PT sessions, I started incorporating some upper body exercise with a Total Gym that we bought just before my diagnosis. It can be easy to let an entire day pass without actually doing any of my TG exercises, but I continue to try to get in at least 2-3 per week. 
  

• My wife and I (and sometimes daughter and I, when she has the time to visit) have taken a number of nature walks/hikes this year, including several during the spring to check out ephemeral wildflowers growing in the area.
  

• I've been able to cautiously participate and/or volunteer for more events with local nature organizations. It's not nearly at the same level as before I got sick, but it feels good to be part of the world again after spending so long stuck at home.

• After two failed attempts (due to weather conditions, mainly) I was finally able to go downstate to visit my daughter for a weekend in early May. She had several day trips planned for us at natural areas down there, and I had enough energy to participate in everything she had planned. 

• This past Tuesday, May 13, my wife and I went on our first bike ride in two years! It was a short one, only a little over 5 miles in total, but we did it and had no adverse effects from it. It sure was nice to get out on our bikes again. We're already starting to plan a 7-mile ride to see how that goes.

Among the Virginia Bluebells display at Deer Run Forest Preserve

Kinnickinnick Creek Nature Preserve with our friend Lisa (and Rocky!)

With my daughter at Henry A. Gleason Nature Preserve

Stopping for lunch at Hononegah Forest Preserve with our friend Rodger.

 

 The Bad:

• At some point this year, I was excited that I was able to hike a mile to a mile and a half on unpaved paths. I tried a 2-mile hike with my wife once, and I could do it, but started dragging about 2/3 of the way. (Literally dragging. My wife says she can see me dragging my feet when my stamina runs out.) The "bad" part about this is that, irrespective of any other exercises that I'm getting, I'm still at that same exhaustion point. My stamina has not improved much at all.

• At my 6-month oncology appointment, my PSA had gone up slightly. It was 0.2 and has gone up to 0.65. My oncologist doesn't feel this is cause for alarm, and said that many PSAs fluctuate. The range considered "normal" is 0-4, and my wife keeps reminding me that 0.65 is still under 1. I can't help but worry that it went back up, though. In purely mathematical terms, it more than tripled. I'm trying to find consolation in what my oncologist and my wife are telling me, but the rise still makes me nervous.

 

The Ugly:

• Toward the end of April, I noticed that my right ankle had swelled up. There was no pain or bruising associated with it, it was just noticeably swollen. After looking for some answers online, we realized that this may have been some form of edema. I was already rather casually monitoring my salt intake because I have (for years now) high blood pressure, but we started scrutinizing that even more carefully. We also bought some compression socks, which helped quite a bit, and I started elevating my foot and leg whenever we were just sitting in the living room together. I haven't gotten rid of it yet, but it's down to "barely noticeable".

• In the evening of May 9 (one week prior to my writing this) I started feeling my heart not beating normally. It wasn't racing or skipping beats because I've had experience with both of those. It's hard to describe, but I kept saying that it felt like my heart was tired, as though it was struggling to beat normally. When it happened again the next evening, I mentioned it to my wife and she decided to keep a record of it happening. Unfortunately, it happened every day since then, and has started earlier in the day each time.

• On Wednesday, May 14 (the day after our bike ride mentioned above) I woke up completely exhausted -- drugged-like exhausted -- and my aforementioned heart issue had started even before I got out of bed. We decided to call my "regular" doctor in hopes that maybe we could make an appointment. He advised us to go to Immediate Care, which we did. We spend four hours there that day, with them subjecting me to bloodwork, chest x-rays, EKG, and a CT scan. None of the results raised any red flags so the parting advice we were given was to make an appointment with a cardiologist.

• That afternoon, we asked my GP for a referral for a cardiologist. He gave us two names. The earliest we can get in with either of them is early September! It's as though the cardiologists feel we just want a casual social visit. By September, this issue will either go away on its own or get so bad that we'll need to go to the Emergency Room because it got much worse. As I type this, my heart is not beating regularly, I don't know what's causing it, and the medical professionals are just shrugging their shoulders.

 

Sorry to end with the ugly. I want to emphasize that I'm very glad to still be alive and I am well aware that I'm doing better now than I was last year at this time. I'm just frustrated, first that my recovery is generally so glacially slow, and second that the edema and heart trouble have presented genuine setbacks. I was taking baby steps on a ramp that was almost horizontal, then somehow fell off the ramp with these new issues in May. 

 

I'd like to think that moving my body and eating better food are helping me, even in light of the setbacks, but I definitely struggle with motivation right now. I've been a very good boy since ending chemo, so why am I now taking several steps backwards? Has moving and eating better helped me? Right now, it doesn't feel like it.

Post Chemo Check-in

It has been four months since my last chemo infusion on October 1 and three months since we've checked any of my bloodwork. This update comes courtesy of a busy week, though, with labs and physical therapy on Tuesday, meeting with my oncologist on Wednesday, then an appointment with my GP as well as PT on Thursday. 

Anxiety ruled the days leading up to this. It would be the first time since starting chemo that my PSA (prostate specific antigen, the cancer "gauge" for me) wasn't monitored monthly. All sorts of thoughts of this aggressive cancer rearing its ugly head in the last three months was starting to weight heavily on my mind. If that PSA was back up, it would probably mean a 2025 that mirrored my 2024, which was the worst year of my 62 years on this planet.

I tried to console myself by reminding myself that I was still on the hormone drugs designed to keep my testosterone down, and that Ground Zero for the cancer (my prostate gland) had been nullified through the cryotherapy that happened at the start of all this. Still, especially in the days leading up to my oncologist appointment, I was pretty nervous and couldn't stop thinking about the worst case scenario. My wife admits to feeling similarly.

I am very pleased to report that my PSA is now down to 0.20, which is 0.06 lower than it was at the end of October! I'm under no illusion that my cancer is now somehow "cured", especially since they reminded me all last year that my cancer is incurable. However, if what we're doing is working so well that my PSA continues to go down, meaning that the cancer is mostly dormant, I'll take it!

One of my big concerns was that, in the past month, I not only started physical therapy but also supplemented that with some low-level upper body exercises at home. My understanding is that exercise increases testosterone, which was adding to the anxiety before my check-up. I need the exercise, but will it trigger cancer growth and spread? Apparently and very thankfully, the answer to that question is "no".

Speaking of PT, it really wears me out sometimes but I can tell that it's working. My balance (which had fallen into the "absolutely sucks" range) has improved. Likewise my lower body strength. I've still got a long way to go, but anything that makes me healthier than I was last year is welcomed with open arms. 

My wife and I found ourselves out at a frozen lake in a local state park on Wednesday, after the oncology appointment. The outside temps had warmed up that day, but there was still at least 6" of ice on the surface of the lake. After spotting a couple ice fisherman out much farther than I would choose to go, I decided to venture out on the ice for the fun of it... and ice photos! I didn't realize it when I stepped out, but this turned out to be a pretty intense test of both balance and leg strength. I had no ice cleats with me, so I was literally walking around on the ice with street shoes. I'm still surprised that I never ended up with my butt on the ice!

 

 

The next day, between trying to keep myself upright on the ice and a new and strenuous PT exercise, my legs we're just killing me. As I write this three days later, my legs are still sore. As much as that might sound like a complaint, it's also so nice to know that I'm building strength, gaining more balance, and I'm able to do stuff like walk around on a frozen lake. I don't think I would have been able to do that through most of 2024.

Bottom line? This recovery is remarkably slow but it's nice to feel sooo much better than I did most of last year, and it's just a nice to know that my PSA is staying down for now. 

Zen and the Art of Battling Cancer

✦ ✧ ✦ ✧  WARNING: Music Nerd Post  ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦

Not long ago, I was having a conversation about music with a good friend of mine. My friend and I have enjoyed numerous great conversations about music over the 30 years that we've known each other. In this instance, we found ourselves talking about how some music gets past us and, on the other side of that coin, the ups and downs of only recently discovering "older" music. This led to a brief discussion of some other self-imposed frustrations we put on ourselves.

It got me thinking about how my listening habits have changed, influenced by my battle with cancer for the past year. It's safe to say that this battle has changed me in several ways, both physical and mental/emotional, and our conversation made me want to try to articulate how the past year has changed my listening habits. 

Since I’ve been sick, I’ve really embraced spontaneity in my listening habits like never before. If a post about a record or a band makes me curious (or nostalgic) I give it a listen. If something trips a trigger and invites me down into a deep musical rabbit hole, I willingly follow it in. Life is short, and none of us will ever hear all the music. Listen as you please.

I realize that the ability to stream music makes the aforementioned easy to do. I would never have been unable to listen so spontaneously even a decade or so ago. I'm a big fan of streaming music for all the investigating and experimenting you can do with such ease. (To anyone reading this who might also be sensitive to the ways in which many streaming services pay so little to the artists whose work they stream, rest assured that I often support artists I really like financially.)

Sometimes things don't trip any triggers with me. In the past I might "try" to like it with further listens, especially if it's getting good reviews. Now, if something doesn’t hit me, I might just try it again later... or I might not. Sometimes it works “later” and sometimes not, but that’s okay too. It's all okay. There are no rules.

My friend and I share a common frustration (or would "sense of wonder" be more accurate?) about certain music slipping past our radar and then "discovering" that music much later on. Here's an example: One of my sweet spots in the world of jazz is small group sessions from the late 50s and early 60s. Most of this came out before I was born. Sometimes when I listen to it, I’m both overwhelmed at how great some of that music is but also frustrated that I didn’t even know it was out there until decades later!

It was a low key frustration, to be sure, but I've never liked missing out on things musical. These days, I’m convinced that such late discoveries only enhance my daily listening experiences. New musical surprises… only of older music. I realize that my previous frustrations were entirely self-induced, but it's still nice to be free of them.

There's a Zen-like, go-with-the-flow theme emerging here. Music has been incredibly therapeutic for me since I got sick. It helped bring me out of some very dark places. I value it now more than ever ... and I already valued it a great deal! I’m not going to give a second thought to how timely I discovered something, whether or not I "should" like it, how much I know about it, or even whether I'm streaming or listening to physical media sources to hear it. 

Life is too short for all of that, except music itself.

100 Days

It has now been 100 days since my last chemo infusion on October 1, 2024. That seems like a good excuse for an update. 

I've alluded to this in previous entries, but I'm astounded at how long recovery from chemo takes. Over three months from my last infusion and I'm still weak, feeble, and my balance is terrible. I've only just recently stopped using my cane around the house for stability, but I still get around like an old man and make frequent use of countertops and door jams to maintain stability.

I just turned 62 but I feel much more like 72+ these days. Seriously.

My hair is taking an incredibly long time to grow back. I think I mentioned this in the previous post but my glacially slow hair regrowth has turned into a gauge for my healing in general. I've been very frustrated that I'm not getting better any faster than this, and my wife reminds me that my hair regrowth is a visual indicator of how long it's taking my body to recover from the chemo. That has helped me be more patient, at least to an extent. 

Matters of fact: At 100 days after my last infusion, I have 1/4" to 1/2" hairs growing on most of my head, eyebrows, mustache, cheeks, arms, and chest. (I was no gorilla before I got sick but I was a kind of hairy guy, making the loss of hair very apparent.) At a distance, I still look mostly hairless. Only my chin hair seems to be growing enough to be obvious.

Somewhere in the middle of my chemotherapy, at the end of some of those rounds, I felt well enough to go for short hikes now and then. I expected that to happen during the last week of round five and six, but the accumulation of Docetaxel in my system had built up enough that I never saw "better" days during those rounds. Little did I expect, though, that I had so much in me it would take many more months to recover once chemo was over. It will be interesting (in a somewhat perverse way) to find how long it will actually take before I feel like my old self again. At times I wonder if I will ever feel like my old self again.

In better news, I started physical therapy, and I've been working on some things that definitely seem to be making a difference in terms of strength and balance. In addition, just in the past week or so, I've started to do a few upper body exercises on the Total Gym that I bought about a year ago. (At the time I bought it, I thought I was really run down and out of shape, and it was winter. I didn't realize cancer was spreading through my body and making me feel that way.)

My physical therapy exercises are focused on hip and balance issues right now. All lower body work. My upper body was always the stronger half of me but I still want to get back some of what I lost through last year's ordeal. That's the Total Gym's job right now. I'm also happy to report that, even though I'm only doing about a dozen repetitions of a handful of exercises, it's not wiping me out. The smallest amount of exercise was wiping me out from February 2024 onward. It's nice to feel that I'm finally at least well enough to handle some minor exercises. It's been a while!

One last thing. I'm still on my anti-testosterone hormone drugs. I will likely remain on those drugs. I really have to wonder how big a role those are playing in my overall lack of strength and stamina. They've got to be playing some role!