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 Well, well, it’s quite interesting what you can achieve when you throw your toys out of the pram.
On Wednesday I blasted off an email to my cancer nurse regarding the clinical meeting and the lack of further treatment options. I said that I couldn’t understand why at this stage I was not being offered a complete androgen blockade therapy (stopping all testosterone, not just that produced by the testes) with a drug like Casodex (bicalutamide).
Well, around teatime yesterday I had a phone call from one of the doctors on the team who apologized for the meeting and then suggested that they put me on an androgen blockade regime and were happy to prescribe some Casodex! It seems that not only am I running a primary school but now I’m designing my own cancer treatment regime. Interestingly she also said that the main consultant had looked at the scans and came to the conclusion that the cancer hadn’t spread into the abdominal area, which was the complete opposite of what we were told on Tuesday!
I have just come back from the hospital loaded up with Casodex and am starting my new treatment regime straight away. I’m now on three medications – three monthly injections of Zolodex (the next one is this coming Tuesday), Casodex (taken daily by tablet) and some other drug which I can remember the name of that is meant to help me pee. I feel much happier now I know that the treatment has changed to match the nature of the disease although I am concerned as the side effects will ratchet up and it may effect my performance at work. I think the most pressing side effect will be tiredness.
In the meanwhile we are in the process of making another appointemnt with the consultant to go through the scanes in depth and get some sensible answwrs. The next PSA test (probably in about a month) will be critical. Hopefully it should plummet with the new treatment regime.
 Does the music stop,
When the last heart beat fades away,
Or is that just the start,
Of the greatest symphony ever to be played?
 My cancer laughs at me,
It sniggers and sneers behind my back,
As it twists itself round my guts ever tighter,
Like some monstrous demon full of pregnant malice,
That is born of foul hate and spite,
And gorges itself on my fear and loathing.
My cancer laughs at the doctors,
With their childish medical pantomime,
The dame with outlandish dress,
‘It’s behind you, oh no it isn’t',
And the fool that prances and jibbers,
With his impotent potions and medications,
My cancer laughs at me,
And ridicules my performance as a hero,
My pathetic attempts to stand and out stare it,
Looking into its cold implacable stare,
But always I turn away from its gruesome visage,
My courage a paper thin pretense.
My cancer laughs at me,
It will have its day.
 Well, I’ve gone through the whole gamut of feelings over the last twenty four hours or so, running from depression and despair to anger and frustration.
But anger is the most predominant feeling. I blasted off an email to the hospital yesterday and have asked for a private clinical meeting with the consultant next week – I can’t wait a fortnight. I think in retrospect that the registrar was caught on the hop at our meeting – she had only just noticed the PSA score. To be honest I think my medical team have taken their eye off the ball and I’m starting to lose confidence.
The problem is that wherever I go, the waiting rooms are full of men in their 60’s 70’s or 80’s and they all have an indolent slow growing form of the disease. The latest results have confirmed that I have a particularly aggressive form of prostate cancer and I think the doctors can often forget that – after all they are mainly dealing with slow growing cancers. I think it is inevitable now that I will need to seek a second option.
But there is another feeling as well. De ja vu. Yet again I have gone into a meeting with my ‘everything will be alright’ attitude to be knocked for six. Because that what we’re supossed to do isn’t it? Stay positive they say – yeah fucking right, they should try that when they keep getting kicked in the balls (quite an apt metaphor).
 Shit! Shit! Shit!
Not good. It really doesn’t help when you have to wait over one and a half hours past your appointment time to hear bad news!
We saw the registrar rather than the consultant and it was not a good meeting. Regarding the CT scan, it is pretty clear that although the lymph’s have reduced in size, the cancer has spread beyond the pelvic area into the abdominal lymph system. The good news is that the scan shows no metastasis to the bones (although I am now unsure how useful a CT scan is with regard to bone metastasis – I think it’s time for another proper bone scan).
The shock was the PSA score which has gone up to 1.6, meaning it has more than doubled in the last three months. Clearly the cancer is still active and spreading. Because the cancer is still wide spread outside the prostate itself, radiotherapy has been turned down as an option.
I am left with a cancer that is inoperable, and not treatable with radiotherapy. My options are reducing rapidly. It is fairly clear that the hormone therapy is failing or at least being less than successful. The problem with the meeting was that the registrar was really not able to offer any new treatment regime. This is completely unacceptable. There is no reason that I can think of not to expect the PSA score to double again if the treatment remains the same – ‘If you keep on doing what you’ve always done, you’ll always keep getting the same’. All I’ve been offered is some tablets to help me piss better!
We have requested an urgent meeting with the consultant herself to discuss the situation in a fortnights time.
So we are left playing the waiting game yet again. SHIT!
 I am an actor without a script,
Stumbling on a dark and empty stage,
Strewn with dismal scenery and crumbling props,
I mouth my incoherent lines and filthy asides,
Into the vast and endless silence,
That, like a deep and bottomless well,
Swallows my words and empty thoughts,
And sucks my soul dry into desiccated bones.
The audience sits deaf, dumb and mute,
As my performance painfully unfolds,
Before their mindless lidless gaze,
And their ears that hear but cannot understand.
Hidden there within that static throng,
Sits the Critic with malignant and relentless eyes,
Pouring scorn and dirty approbation,
On my simple naïve play,
That is a cheap illusion for a life.
 Yesterday was my birthday and I’m sorry to say that I have reached the age of 54. It is amazing how time creeps up on you. It is difficult to imagine that I am over half a century old. Friends and family put on a super birthday party yesterday and it was great to see everybody and a chance to catch up with news. I am really grateful for all their kind support and the hard work that went into making it a great birthday party.
Of course, I really have a double birthday. It is 54 years since I was born but one year since my diagnosis with prostate cancer. My clinical meeting is on Tuesday and this is the big one. We will look through the CT scan which was taken last Friday and compare it with the CT scan taken six months ago. That should enable us to gauge the spread of the disease. As we already know that the cancer has spread to the pelvic lymph glands the question is, has it spread beyond to the abdominal lymph glands as well? On the CT scan taken six months ago the consultant said they saw ’suspicious’ lymph nodes, including some clustered around the liver. All will be revealed (I hope) on Tuesday.
I got to thinking yesterday about all the changes that have taken place over the past half century. Four in particular came to mind:
Space travel
I have lived through the first moon landing and the beginning of the space age. It is difficult for many us to imagine the amazement of those first pictures of earth taken from space.
Computers
It almost impossible to imagine life now without computers, but I started my early teaching career working as an advisory teacher for computers based on the old BBC Acorn machines and the ZX Spectrum.
Central heating
The advent of central heating has revolutionized the way we use our houses. I remember when the only fire we had was a coal fire and the coal man coming with his bags of coal every Friday. I can remember the rigmarole of cleaning out the ash and setting up the fire so that it would light first time. We used to end up with a blazing hot space in front of the fire and the rest of the house freezing cold!
Colour TV
I can vividly remember our first small black and white TV with its tiny bulbous screen and flickering picture. What an amazing revolution when we could watch in colour! Unfortunately for a while I remember everyone being so besotted with the colour control that they would turn it up high and every field would be covered with fluorescent green grass and every human had the most vivid orange coloured flesh!
There have been many more ‘advances’ of course other than these, but they are the ones that come to mind. And along with all the positive advances have come negative ones, such as the rise of terrorism, the litigious culture and social fragmentation. I wonder what people will look back at in another fifty years time?
 Some days I wish you would come back,
And we could sit and have a chat,
And then we’d say the things unsaid,
When you left and we were bereft.
Those things we never seemed to find the time,
To say though they were on our mind,
Those things I never said to you,
The things I somehow hoped you knew.
I’d pay a king’s ransom now to hear,
You talk about a son that’s dear,
A son who made you proud and glad,
To be the one that he called dad.
You could provide me with advice,
On how I could live my life,
You’d be the anchor when things are tough,
When life is hard and things are rough.
Somehow I know you’ll always be,
Right there to help and comfort me,
Although now I cannot feel your touch,
I know you loved me so very much.
- Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men
- One man dies every hour in the UK
 March is Prostate Cancer awareness month. Marks and Spencer’s are supporting Prostate Cancer awareness month by running ‘Pants-A-Lot’ campaigns. They are donating 10% from the sale of an Autograph range of men’s underwear for the first two weeks of March to the Prostate Cancer Charity, so now is a good time to buy those new pants and vests!
They will also be offering pin badges bearing the Charity’s blue man emblem for a suggested donation of £1. Please look out for the pin badges elsewhere and support the charity by buying and wearing your ‘blue man’ with pride.
 The M&S campaign is being fronted by the Snows (Peter Snow, his son, Dan, and the Channel 4 News’ anchorman, Jon Snow,) who have been photographed in their underwear. Also supporting the campaign is ‘Purple Ronnie’.
The Prostate Cancer Charity have set up a great website all about Prostate Cancer with the tag line: “don’t let prostate cancer hide”. They are encouraging people to do a “Blue Day” to raise money for the charity. Alternatively it is possible to simply donate online.
Australia also has an excellent website of the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia, which is well worth a visit. Their awareness month was back in September when they ran a campaign to raise money through organising BBQs. Australia seems to be much more pro-active with regard to prostate cancer than here in the UK. The Movember campaign that I took part in last November originated in Australia. They also produce an excellent leaflet about Prostate Cancer entitled ‘Be a Man’ (click to download).
Whilst our governments refuse to implement screening for men, the only way we will reduce the horrendous figures for death from prostate cancer is through education and raising awareness.
 Yet another story from the Daily Mail about a cure for prostate cancer (article here) – this time ‘dynamite’.
It turns out that the clinical trial was actually with skin patches seeped in nitroglycerine rather than sticks of dynamite (where would you put them!) as suggested by the accompanying picture of a bundle of dynamite. The article claimed that in the clinical trial the patches stopped cancer tumours “in their tracks”.
Actually nitroglycerine patches have been used for some time with patients suffering from angina, and a more level headed article in Medical News Today suggestts that the positive effects may be due to a decreases in nitric oxide.
Well, there have certainly been a lot more zany ideas than using dynamite to cure cancer. Who knows, there may be something in it.
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