5 hours of pain followed by 90 minutes of pleasure!

First and foremost, PSA: 36.36, down a fraction from last month.

It's all about stability right now and this was great news. I was pretty worried before the appointment.,

Overall yesterday's visit to the cancer center was a great big drag! As usual we arrived at 8:30 for labs, then our meeting with Dr. V, and then it was off to treatment. On a normal day we would have been done and on our way by 11:00am. Everything was proceeding as expected until I checked in at the treatment center at just before 10:00am. We waited, and waited and finally were called back at 11:40ish. One thing led to another and it turns out we didn't leave until 1:15pm, nearly five hours later. I'm not sure what the issue was? Too many patients, too few nurses, but it was frustrating! Oh well, I'm just hoping it was an anomaly.

Mary and I were famished at that point so I agree to have lunch with her at the Blue Koi. The history on the Blue Koi is this; it was one of our favorite places to eat until last summer. We would go there for lunch everytime I had treatment or doctor appointments. However, after about my third or fourth chemo treatment, I couldn’t eat it anymore. It tasted horrible. It was a shame that the one thing chemo had to ruin was my ability to eat at one of our favorite places.
So yesterday we returned for the first time since last summer. The result? All is well, it was wonderful, again!

After lunch I returned home and finished some work for a few hours before my next appointment, my massage. Mary had given this to me for my birthday back in January. This was only the second time I had a massage. Te first was over two years ago in Tucson. This time it was quite a bit longer, but I have to tell you, the 90 minutes went by like five! Bottom line, I slept like a baby and am feeling good today!

Out like a lion....

With the beginning of Spring and the end of March came a nice little reminder from Mother Nature as to who's in charge! We received a late season snow storm yesterday that delivered about 5 inches of snow on our house. It was very pretty to wake to this morning, but rather heavy to shovel from the driveway.

Tomorrow is my four week appointment with Dr. V, as well as a Lupron shot and Zometa infusion. I am rather concerned about my PSA, being that my sole treatment right now is Lupron. It has been two months since my last chemo treatment. Where did the time go?

Overall, I am still feeling very good. I worked out four mornings last week, I was able to shovel the driveway this morning and even played disc golf again yesterday morning before the snow arrived. I have been experiencing mild pain in both knees throughout the day. Nothing real bad, in fact I have yet to take Advil to deal with the pain. I'm not sure of the connection, but this all started after I weaned myself from the daily steroids I was taking until about two weeks ago. I was taking the prednisone during the chemo regimen. I had to slowly withdraw over two weeks. We definitely will discuss with Dr. V tomorrow.

At this point MD Anderson has received my records and we are expecting a call early this coming week to begin the scheduling process.
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A few non-David health related updates:

On May 9th we will be holding the 2nd Annual FLHW Disc Golf Tournament. We were fortunate enough this year to gain access to one of Kansas City's newest private courses. A wonderfully generous man built the course for the express purpose of providing non-profit foundations an alternative venue for fund raising events in Kansas City. I recently discovered that the course will also be used for this summer's World Disc Golf Championship being held here in KC. We are hoping that this might attract a few more teams that are looking for ways to get on and practice before this summer's major event.

The man who owns the property and course is the owner of Suburban Lawn and Garden. He does some unbelievably philanthropic things here in Kansas City. As we began to plan the disc golf event he extended an offer for a new program at the greenhouse and garden center at 135th and Wornall. Each Friday, for six consecutive weeks, a different charity will receive 10% of all sales between 5 and 8 pm. Also, during the week leading up to the event the charity will be able provide information about their charity to Suburban's customers. FLHW has secured Friday, June 5th! We are very pleased that will give us yet another opportunity to promote the importance of early detection for prostate cancer and make men and women more aware of this disease that kills 28,000 men annually. More details regarding this event will be forthcoming as the date approaches.

Last year at this time we were returning from Spring Break in Florida. It was at this time when I received the news of the passing of one of our PCa brothers, Wes Witcher (this is the post I wrote)

Today, I received the above from Sheri. It reminded my of both how fast time is passing and exactly how blessed I am.

To Sheri, Taylor and Haley may God'as grace continue to bless you all and may peace always be with you.

Hail Mary,
Full of Grace,
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit
of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary,
Mother of God,
pray for us sinners now,
and at the hour of death.

Amen.

Spring and a break!

Spring found KC in a big way! The weather since last weekend has been wonderful, and we couldn't have asked for better timing since we stayed home for Spring Break!

Oh course there has already been four rounds of disc golf and Saturday we helped some of the guys from the local club out by orking on the course in the woods. It was only two hours,but back breaking work!

Monday Brad and I played 9 holes of ball golf and he did really well. He showed much improvement from last year at this time.

Yesterday I played disc in the morning, washed and detailed cars for two and a half hours then played another round of disc golf. This year the FLHW disc golf tournament is being held at a private course, just two minutes from the house. It's long, there are a lot of trees that come into play, and it took two of us two hours to play. We primarily went out to determine how to lay out the course for our event on May 9th. It's going to be great, a real challenge, and I really hope the local disc golf community (and others) come out to play and support the cause!

Well, that's really it for now, I'm really tired after yesterday and I still have two or three basketball brackets to fill out!

Disc Golf Overload

Friday it was 70 degrees, so Gary and I skipped out of work at 3 in order to enjoy the weather and get in a quick round of disc golf.

We decided to play a course in Olathe, KS that we don't go to very often. In the past I found the trees tended to be in the way, misplaced is a better description.

It seems in the past year they've done a lot of trimming, I really like the course now. Could be the trimming, or the fact I really took it to Gary. Sorry G, but I've only beat you a few times, and to take you by eight strokes was pretty darn cool!

Saturday it was warm again but windy. We decided to play at Wyandotte County Park as a warm up for a tournament on Sunday. There were nine of us and because the course is so long, we broke into three groups. I thought I shot horribly, but the wind was unkind to everyone and I was only beaten by three strokes, by Joe of course!

So Sunday rolls around and in additional to losing an hour of sleep, we lost any semblance of good weather. When we arrived at 8:30 the wind was howling at a steady 20mph with gusts over 30. In addition, the temperature was 45, at the most. It was a LONG day and in the end, I finished 5th out of 11 players in my division. It was fun and I met a few new players that promised to play in our FLHW Disc Golf Tournament on May 9th.

Monday I woke up a little stiff, but by this morning I was back to normal.

After all that, I just checked the forecast and it looks like the weekend is looking up!!!

In like a lamb...

On Monday, March 2nd, I had my monthly appointment for Zometa (bone strengthener) and Lupron (testosterone suppressor). I thought my next meeting with Dr. V was on the 30th of March, so I asked the lab to draw enough blood to run a PSA test.

The result?

Down to 36.41 or almost two points lower! Not a big decrease (considered statistically stable), but a move in the right direction none the less...We'll take it!

It turned out we did have an appointment with Dr. V, but it was brief. He was going to provide feedback from a conference the week before, be he was not able to attend. We were going to provide him an update on our potential decision on next steps, but we were not yet prepared to make that decision.

Later that Monday, we were able to consult with a medical expert who shared with us his personal opinion of the best option for us to treat my specific condition. In considering where the treatments are offered, we may be headed back down to MD Anderson. We will probably pursue a clinical trial that offers bone targeted therapy. Given that my specific cancer is thriving off the tumors in my bones, we think it makes sense to find a treatment that targets the bone metastasis. We will make arrangements to meet with a doctor down at MD Anderson and ask for their second opinion regarding the next treatment.

That's all I have to report for now. I'll post further updates as the details unfold. In the mean time, taking it one day at a time!