Truckin’ Along
I just had my quarterly Lupron shot after my labs showed
that my blood work is “totally normal” according to my oncologist. Apparently the doctors are concerned about
the liver numbers in particular. I also
finally had another ultrasensitive PSA test.
Scripps now send these out, so I got the results today—0.04. This is one hundredth of a point higher than
it was on 8/29/2017. It is not something
to worry about at this point, but I want to keep monitoring using this test
instead of the less accurate test the lab used since 8/29. That test cannot detect anything below 0.06.
I am continuing on my diet and the supplements. I also continue to talk with my peers who
have more ideas than there are supplements in the world about what we all
should be taking.
My oncologist talked with my contact at CureMatch, the
company that performs a complete analysis of a patient’s biopsy and history of
prostate cancer and comes up with potentially preferred therapies, including clinical
trials. The problem is that I don’t have
a biopsy and my cancer is sleeping right now.
Last year I had a test to see if there were cancer cells floating around
in my blood (‘liquid biopsy”), but none were found. All this says is that I have to see
progression of my cancer before we can take this step with CureMatch. I could go off of Lupron, but letting the cancer
grow this way is problematic at best.
Some of my peers have chosen to do this, but I guess I am too
conservative for this. I’d love to get
off of Lupron and its side effects, but I don’t want to run the risk of moving up
my end date. What I have to do is
something else to deal with the lack of sex drive, the loss of muscle mass, and
the neuropathy. The obvious partial
answer is exercise (yuck).
I am interested in Immunotherapy, but in order to have
the doctors decide whether I may be a good candidate, they need to get the DNA
of some active tumors, which I apparently don’t have. Back to the Catch 22. Besides, Immunotherapy has not been that
successful due to the nature of prostate cancer in contrast to melanoma and
other fast replicating cancers that make use of a particular mechanism that the
body can be made to attack.
I don’t like being on hold, so-to-speak instead of truly
attacking the cancer to kill it once and for all. I’m trying (with some success) to starve it
by taking away testosterone with a combination of supplements with some history
of curtailing some cancers and hoping that cancer feeds on sugar—hence a low
sugar diet. It is just that statistics
show that this approach will likely go the way of most diets—only temporary
curtailing of the problem child.
In any case, I’m just reporting that all is good and I
still have no significant symptoms that can be pointed directly at the cancer.
Again, thank you all for your incredible support.
Les, Truckin’ Man
