December 23, 2010

A book and it's cover

I attended a holiday get together the other night. Like most of these type of events, it was a good mix of people I see often, and those that I haven't seen in a while. 

At one point I was talking to a person that I see several times a year and whom I thought was up to date on my situation. My mistaken assumption. After a little small talk she asked how things were going with my health and made the offhand comment, ‘you’re in remission now, aren’t you?’. I gave her the update, and probably more since that is a habit of mine, but the conversation stuck with me. 

Now, a few days later and I began to ponder this;  I imagine for a lot of people at our church, school and neighborhood, who really don’t know me that well and aren’t probably readers of this blog, they see me and think ‘well he looks great, he must have gotten over it’. [note, when I said ‘looks great’, I mean healthy]. Frankly, I do look healthy and happy so how would anyone know. The same may be said about them and my view and assumption, I see them and they ‘look’ alright, but in reality I have absolutely no idea what’s going on in their life beyond the small talk we exchange at a holiday party.

There is nothing more, nothing deeper, just an observation on my part.

On to my treatment decision. It looks like after all we may be headed east, versus west. Nothing is concrete, but through some initial discussions with the clinical nurse it appears the opportunity in Los Angeles would  require nine round trips in the first three months. I’ll provide more updates as we get then but for now it looks like we might be headed to New Jersey three times in a month, but then we’d be done with that treatment.




3 comments:

Arno said...

Hi David,

I have experienced that too. When somebody thinks I am looking good, en presumes I am doing well, I might bluntly say that those with metastatic prostate cancer can not (yet ?) be cured. It is like riding in a roller coaster. A new treatment brings you on a downward (PSA-) track, but arrived at the bottom we go up equally fast. And you can not leave the car, it does not stop.
I have been checking these down- and up-wards tracks, using you as an example. I hope you don't mind.
With ketoconazol you also experienced a period of stable disease (twice).
The first period there were really 2 treatments simultaneously, both chemical castration (with Lupron) and an anti-androgen (Casodex).
So the total stands at 8 treatments.

Treatment down- stable- up- total time in months
1 (chem.) castration (Lupron) 2.8 - 2.3 5.1
2 anti-androgen (Casodex) 2.8 - 2.3 5.1
3 anti-androgen withdrawal 1.5 - 7.9 9.4
4 ketoconazol 3.4 9.1 3.7 16.2
5 2nd anti-androgen (Nilandron) 1.0 - 3.3 4.3
6 chemo (Taxotere) 6.9 - 6.4 13.3
7 2nd ketoconazol 0.0 6.5 1.3 7.8
8 oestrogen (DES) 6.1 - 2.7 8.8
Totals 24.5 15.6 29.9 70.0 months

So the down track averages 3.1 months, the up tracks 3.7. After the Casodex withdrawal it had been better the start a new treatment after 3 months in stead of 8.
Conclusion: 1. Do not wait too long with starting a new treatment.
2. We are in dear need of more treatment options.

Anonymous said...

Hi David ,
I of course can relate to this post very well.
Many People say "So it seems You have beat Your Prostate Cancer and are completely over that"
Will the 3 treatment in NJ be Provenge?
I am on HDK now and fasting for 2 hours before and an hour after , is that what you did? Did You take it with what beverage?
Merry Christmas and I wish You a Great new Year.

Dan J

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