When I last wrote about my prostate cancer I had taken a turn for the worse in two areas. The chemo therapy treatment I had taken did not do a lot of good for my prostate cancer in that they barely lowered my PSA which is one of the best indicators as to how the prostate cancer is doing.
In addition I had gotten what five percent of people who do chemo get, congestive heart failure.
First, the congestive heart failure.
The symptoms I had that something was very wrong with my body were that I had trouble breathing; I was retaining fluids and was having a struggle walking. I remember one day I was going to the doctor in Great Falls and I was in Albertson’s and had to have help getting back out to the car. When I got to the doctor’s office he thought that my symptoms were that of having problems with the chemo.
When I got back to Havre and was seen by my internal medicine doctor, he knew immediately what had happened to me.
So, how to fix it, that is the question? My Havre doctor said he could fix it with the proper balance of three pills taken together. One was a heart pill that slowed down my heart rate and tried to make it not work as hard. I knew this was essential since my sitting heart beat was in the low 90’s, not good. Then the doctor used another pill to get my blood pressure down to where he wanted it. I had been struggling with low blood pressure as well as high blood pressure so I knew that would be a task to get it perfect and make sure it stayed perfect. The other pill would regulate the amount of fluids my body retained. I call that the pee pill and I wanted to make sure that worked because those extra fluids were not doing my heart any good at all.
After a month of experimenting with different levels of the three pills, my heart slowed down dramatically, my blood pressure has been perfect and I am not retaining any fluids. My breathing is normal and even though my walking is not good, both my doctors have told me that is because of the cancer medicine I am taking at this time.
You have to realize that I am somewhat of a miracle right now because I think I have fought this prostate cancer for fifteen years. Some months I win big battles and other months I lose big battles but I am still around and able to write about my disease that has always seemed like a plague to me.
With the prostate cancer, if I get on a new drug, it usually works well and lowers my PSA dramatically for a month or two and then the cancer finds a way to block the good of the medicine and my PSA starts going up.
That is where I am right now. I am on a treatment that usually is reserved for women’s uterine cancer. But there were reports that it works with prostate cancer as well. So, I found out that my PSA went from the low 60’s to the low 40’s in two months but now the medicine has stopped being as effective so my PSA is now back up to 58.
However, there is another side to this. It seems that the PSA might not measure right for this particular medicine and as long as I am symptom free (which I certainly am), the medicine might be doing more good than we think.
And to make it even worse, my oncologist has had an operation on his hip and won’t be in his office for another month at least so I am not getting his very sound advice.
That is the way it is right now. I think that if I am symptom free that is very good news but I am a cockeyed optimist when dealing with my plague and maybe I should not be.
More later!
