I Would Be Dead and I'm Pissed

I’m not a doctor nor do I play one on T.V. or anywhere else.  I do know I would be dead if not for a PSA. test.  Yesterday the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force [UPSTF] said that a PSA test causes more harm than good.  Really how can a test, a simple blood test cause harm.

Let me back up more than 31 months ago.  Back then my doctor was treating me for back pain that was becoming excruciating pain.  I was sent to pain management specialists, MRI’s, Osteopaths, subjected to a myriad of tests both common and rare, digital exam, acupuncture and I think once a witch and shaman [whom at that time I trusted more than Western medicine].  I was too young for prostate cancer.  I didn’t present any of the usual symptoms of prostate cancer.  I didn’t fit the model. I was dying.

One day the pain was killing me, literally, and I called to make yet another appointment only to find that my doctor was no longer with the office and I was given a different doctor.  He X-rayed me and later as I sat looking at the X-rays waiting for his assessment my laymen’s eye could deduce nothing structurally wrong in my spine which my new Doc confirmed.  He’d also taken more blood for more tests.  I wondered why since it was just back pain, though excruciating, that we were trying to figure out.

Before I could even get home that day from visiting my new Doc I was called back in for an afternoon visit only to find out my PSA was 2640. [Normal is 1 to 5]

If the UPSTF had their way then and swayed the insurance companies and doctors then I would be dead.  Dead!  If you are curious scroll back in my posts and take a look at my subsequent bone scans.  My doctor would have never ordered a PSA.

It’s not the test.  PSA test is the only tool we men have against the number two cancer killer of men.  An elevated PSA isn’t a call to action it is a call to thoughtful consideration.  It is an opportunity to make informed decisions.

What a PSA test isn’t, as the panel wants you to believe, is an instant trip to chemical castration, removal of body parts, impotence, urinary and bowel complications.  Please.  If your car starts spewing clouds of blue smoke do you immediately take it into your favorite mechanic and say “pull the engine?”

If you fit the profile for prostate cancer do the test.  It’s a needle and blood damn little of both.  Then depending on the result make informed and educated decisions.  Simple and possibly life saving.

241,740 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer this year.  Probability says that a little over 28,000 of those men will die from prostate cancer.  Probability says I’m likely to be one of those 28,000 at some time.  However, I’m in my 33 month of what statistically is a 24 month death sentence.  A PSA test was the beginning.

Quoting Dr. Anthony D’Amico chief of Genitourinary Radiation Oncology in today’s Wall Street Journal. “There’s a huge difference between over-diagnosis and over treatment.”

Think about it.  A test killing you?  What’s next PAP smears?

Talk to you later

GET TESTED

Real Time

Today I received a reply from a friend of mine of many years whom I love dearly to an email asking how her Mother's Day was.   I've known her for decades but as the fates would have it   she became my "cancer buddy" when she was diagnosed with breast cancer about the same time I was diagnosed my stage IV evil empire. All looks great for her but she is going through the frustrations, depression and worry that go with fighting the evil empire that we all do.  She being my "buddy" has frequently kicked me back into the positive as I have her.  

Today, her reply to "how was your Mother's Day?" was, "My kids think I'll live forever..."   

In an attempt to kick her back into the positive I wrote via e-mail:

WTF is “The kids think I'll live forever....”  What the hell does that mean?  Should I get my frecking violin out?

They don’t think that but they want that.  What would you have them do, hold a wake for you while you sit there smiling?  I may be missing something but that sure doesn’t sound like a very positive statement.  AND it really really doesn’t sound like a [name] statement.    Don’t forget I totally am in the same boat you are and Mr. Positive is not my name a lot of the time.   

Believe me I know how brutally tough, tiring, frustrating – god I don’t have enough space to write all the words – this frecking cancer thing is.  But this is new to them too and just as scary but in a different way.  If I’m off base here or read your statement wrong by all means kick my ass but right now I’m kicking yours my dear. 

Even if, as a parent, if you weren’t sick, all children think their parents are larger than life [for good or bad] and will live forever [whether they want them to or not].  Then one day we as children look up and see these two frail people and say, what the hell they are old!  

Your kids and mine don’t realize it but they are afraid that they won’t get to have that day of realization.  They are afraid that if they need us in their, as they define the future - immediate [though on the surface they think they won’t and don’t] we won’t be there.

Though my future scares the hell out of me I move on leaving those I love.  Those I love on the other hand have to stay behind with a large empty space that is hopefully partially filled with happy memories and lessons learned.

Sorry I kind of went off there but dammit your future is to live to a ripe old age of raisondom, prunedom or any other wrinkledom…that’s what your children are calling living forever. 

Love ya'

[name]

 So went my email reply.  Defense comes in many ways and perhaps "Dad I gotta run the boys and I have a tee time." is one of them.

talk to you later 

Trouble and Afraid

Thirteen or Thirty years of age I’m guessing that at some time you have been in so much trouble it scared you to no end.   

I’ve spent a large portion of my life courting trouble, bulls, ice, mountains and stupidity.  In each of those situations I’ve been scared, or at least terrified.

While on the annual vacation centuries ago I convinced my brother to piss on an electric fence.  Upon my father’s arrival I knew I was in trouble and I was afraid.  Afraid because I knew I was in trouble.

Years later on the same annual island vacation I really got in trouble that resulted in fear.  I had discovered while roaming about in the bay if I turned the raft over there was this really cool breathing space. My father roared that I was in trouble to the point that I was scared.  I’d never seen him so upset. 

My two children that have graduated our house years ago have taught me why a father looking at an over turned vessel containing his child would freak out.

Same island different year a friend of mine and myself doing the 70s thing hitched to the island.  We ended up walking a ways and looking across the tidal flat from the dike toward our ultimate destination I said “lets cross here it will save us miles”.  Result…?

Trouble, quicksand, tidal mud and incoming tide and terrified beyond belief. Through the muck and fecund smell we struggled with every thought in mind we would die soon. 

As I grew older I had many an occurrence to be in trouble.  Whether, mountains, ice, bulls or as I mentioned stupidity I’ve been in trouble.

I’m in trouble now [as of 7:28 P.M. PST]    I’m hoping a miracle happens.  But this kind of trouble you really aren’t afraid.  Sure I’m afraid of pain.  Sure I’m so totally afraid for my loved ones.  

 But I didn’t put myself in this position life did.  That’s the difference. 

A climb, a bull or whatever we put ourselves in front of that trouble.  I believe you are afraid in those situations because you did it on purpose and a small cell in your brain is saying “how could I be so stupid.”

I didn’t do this disease on purpose.  Then why am I afraid.

Lack of Participation

I’ve always been a firm believer in participating in life.  Some partial things on my life list of participation include everything from climbing rocks and ice, bull riding, driving cars stupidly, loving, and a whole bunch of other stuff both normal and scary.  Hasn’t included the last two months that I’ve been hiding in the woe is me hole.

Pain, sickness and stress can easily impede participation.  My guess is that’s why they make Zoloft, which I take.  It is true, all those stresses, pain and whatever, can sneak up on you and tamp your “gee I’m happy” right down into that “crap everything sucks” hole.

Treatments, oncologists, nurses, techs, and the list goes on and on.  They are all part of the most incredible cancer team that takes care of me.  My caregiver/wife and best friend I can’t ask for more.  They all make this easier to participate.   I do wish insurance and investment companies would quit playing music from the seventies though.

A few weeks ago I went with my family over to the park.  They played baseball and my “participation” was to stand around and take pictures.  Which I did until laughing, giggling like a kid and ignoring my wife’s admonitions, I pitched and batted.  OK it was a nine year old and two four year old twins but I played and I fell down.  I laughed and laughed and laughed.  I participated and when it was all said and done I was happily admonished by wife for being foolish. 

I had participated in life, was active and laughed.  The last time I’d done that was when I went to the cabin last August.  I fell down there too but it was an incredible time of my life.

It’s tough to be part of life when you feel like crap.  That includes simple things like writing a blog.  It certainly includes being active.  I think I’ve climbed out of my hole and I thank the reader who posted the other day about simple things and hoped I was well and found more simple things.

Oh, by the way, I was admonished when I came back from the cabin last August because I was limping similar to the most recent “baseball” game.

I know it’s tough when it feels like the world is kicking your ass.  Typing this blog tonight I once again don’t feel like the world is kicking my ass quite so hard.

I’ll talk to you.