Side Effect Redeux

Well, I seem to be on a 'side effect' roller coaster.

Just when I think I've put some things behind me . . . BOOM! There they are again.

It's not incapacitating. It's just a little miserable. And annoying.

Dang will I be glad with the next few months are over.

Of course, I also know that if I could get back on the bike my perspective would be much better. I really thought I would get to catch a little bit of summer, but no such luck.

Well, that's what heated clothing is for. :)

Exactly what I've been saying

I don't know why the doctors continue to paint such rosy pictures for normalcy after prostate cancer. Each of the docs I went to said "The other therapies leave significant side effects, but not mine."

Then they would offer reassuring words, give me a handout with statistics to back up what they had said, and out the door I went.

Here is the sobering truth.

“I had surgery by a doctor who said 98 percent of my patients are perfectly fine,” said Mr. Nelson, now 51. “Of course, I wasn’t perfectly fine.”

The Side Effects? Well, There Is One...

Realistic expectations MUST be communicated. Otherwise you set men up for a double-whammy.

But I have a feeling that it once again comes down to money. Physicians don't follow the #1 rule of a great business - under promise and over deliver.

But then again, we don't have a lot of choice, do we?

Guess I didn't know . . .

You ever notice that sometimes you don't know how sick you are until you start to feel better?

That's what happened to me this weekend.

Finally the fatigue and nausea lifted. I've actually spent the last 5 days or so with little to no nausea. That's a big difference.

And a welcome one.

But it does make me look back over the last few weeks since the procedure, and realize that I have been very, very sick.

I think one of the main things that has bothered me about this whole process is that every piece of literature I've read - regardless of the method of treatment - lists the possible side effects but ends with 'but you'll be fine'. So, we expect to feel bad for a couple of weeks and then get on with our lives close to normal.

A few weeks ago a study came out showing that men that have had prostate surgery are deeply regretful about 2 years after the fact. The medical community kind of tossed it's hands in the air and said that the patients were 'overly optimistic' regarding their recovery and the life-ling impacts of the surgery. They couldn't understand why the men aren't getting the message.

Life After Prostate Surgery Worse Than Men Expect

Well, that's because side effects are downplayed. In the literature AND in the physicians office.

Over-promised and under-delivered. That's a recipe for dissatisfaction.

I'm still glad I had the radiation. I think.

I guess we will have to see where the next couple of years takes me.

Whine, whine, whine

Okay, I think I've been very patient. Hardly whiny at all.

Mostly.

Ask my wife Suzanne. She will tell you that's one of the first signs of me feeling better.

But now that I can no longer ignore the fact that it is fall - after a full three weeks of summer here in the northwest - it's ticking me off that I can't ride my bike.

I know, I know . . . small price to pay and all that.

But my motorcycle is what keeps me sane. Honestly. Riding is a form of therapy - a zen-like state of machine melded with the forces of physics into a symphony of gravity and acceleration. Punctuated only by teen-age girls on cell phones.

It has now been a little over three months since my posterior graced the saddle, and I'm gettin' a tad twitchy.

I know that I still have a couple of weeks to go before my butt hits the seat. And as I watch the days get shorter and the temps fall, it feels like I'm in a race for those last few magical days of non-rainy riding.

In the meantime I plan to start back on my regular swim schedule. The local pool has been closed for a bit and now that it's all shiny and clean, it's time to get back to my other home - the water. I won't be back to full workouts for a while, but I know swimming will be a boon to my soul as well as my body.

But still, it's not like a few hours riding around Mt. Rainier, or hopping over Chinook pass. Twisting and turning up those hills with Suzanne in the seat behind me, stopping for lunch or a picnic beside a quiet river - that's what's required to make me feel . . . normal.

That's really all the therapy I need.

A rant on life by Dennis Leary

Ran across this first thing this morning and I thought I would share:

“Most people think life sucks, and then you die. Not me. I beg to differ. I think life sucks, then you get cancer, then your dog dies, your wife leaves you, the cancer goes into remission, you get a new dog, you get remarried, you owe ten million dollars in medical bills but you work hard for thirty-five years and you pay it back and then -- one day -- you have a massive stroke, your whole right side is paralyzed, you have to limp along the streets and speak out of the left side of your mouth and drool but you go into rehabilitation and regain the power to walk and the power to talk and then -- one day -- you step off a curb at Sixty-seventh Street, and BANG you get hit by a city bus and then you die. Maybe.”

--Dennis Leary

The Doc Visit And Pesticides

So my Doc visit two days ago was a non-event.

Quick physical check, a few questions about side-effects, and I was given two thumbs up and a 'right on schedule'.

That's good news. No, that's great news!

Doc was also ecstatic that the placement of the seeds were "spot on", and he estimated target coverage at 98%. That's also great news.

But it still astounds me that something that looms so large in my life is, in reality, just a blip in the machinery of modern medicine. Day procedures and follow-up visits. Honestly, when I had my gall bladder out back in the early '90s, (and yes, this was RIGHT before the laparoscopic procedure was developed), it was a much larger event than this prostate cancer.

It's not that I want to be in the hospital, or undergo a series of procedures or radiation - I am very, very fortunate on that front, but I don't know how to explain it - it all seems sort of anti-climactic.

Now we follow with blood tests every 3 months and watch the PSA levels.

The radiation will peak in another month and a half, then start a slow decline as the radiation from the seeds begin to diminish. So a few more weeks of intense side-effects and then a gradual decline.

That will be nice.

Of course I also understand that I'm not out of the woods just yet. That story will be told over the next 18 to 24 months as we watch the PSA. I'm not really concerned - I'm just going to assume that the radiation did the trick.

That's kind of the way I approach most things anymore: I can either dream and fantasize failure or victory. Cure or curse. Whatever I spend my time contemplating isn't going to change the outcome one iota, so why not think positively? Otherwise I'm thinking of all the horrible things that could happen, and doing that - and you'll have to trust me on this - robs you of today. That's no way to live.

So, now you are all caught up.

As I've said before there are a slew of reports that come out everyday concerning prostate cancer. My inbox is stuffed every morning with articles and new drug therapies and all the latest advances. Some are encouraging, some are not.

One that caught my attention is this one:

Pesticide - Prostate Cancer Link

Well pugnuts. Yes, I said pugnuts.

I grew up in a small town in eastern Washington until I was 9 years old. My family then moved to 'the coast'. Which, for anyone living in eastern WA meant everything west of the Cascades. Like most of the people I knew, our house was surrounded by apple orchards. And I mean surrounded. Huge orchards that stretched forever. The apple trees bordered my backyard - and continued across the dirt road in front of my house for another good stretch. Other huge tracts of fruit trees lined the two-lane highway that bisected our small town. I could almost chuck an apple from my front yard across the blacktop into the other orchard.

I guess looking back it was one huge orchard with a few houses clustered here and there.

I also remember the tractors pulling the big tanks with the huge fans on the back that drove between the trees flooding the orchard with pesticides. Sometimes it was my Dad driving. He would come home for lunch - his clothes literally dripping with the stuff - and the house would fill with the peppery/chemical/acrid odor of the spray.

But my family followed safety precautions. I wasn't allowed to go outside to play until the fog had settled, and I had to stay at least two orchard-rows away from where they were spraying. Then I had to be careful not to walk under the trees while they were wet and dripping but we were kids and didn't listen as we should.

I won't even get into how they kept the frost off the trees back then. Let me say that it involved hundreds of 'smudge-pots' lining the rows, filled with oil - coal oil I think - and set afire to keep the frost away. I always knew when the mornings were cold because the thick smokey fog permeated everything, seeping into the house like an unwelcome guest.

Now I realize just how horrible all of this sounds. But it really was a different time. My family had been working in and around orchards for years. It was just part of the job and not a big deal.

Now you tell me times haven't changed.

And for the better.

But still, I think back and wonder how many of my health problems originated in those orchards.

Probably more than I would ever want to know.

My First Doc Visit

Today I get to go see my Doc.

This will be the first post-procedure visit.

I hardly know what to expect. Oh, I know I'll be poked and prodded - that's a given - but beyond that what will transpire will be a mystery.

There will be a lot of talking, of that I'm sure.

I'm doing better than I was last week. And certainly better than the week before, so there is progress. Just not fast enough for me. :)

And I probably won't mention all of the stupid stuff I did at my daughter's wedding last week. I'll just skirt that issue thank you.

But for some reason I'm a little nervous.

I'll let you know what happens.