It's going to be a long Spring...

 Well, it's been a whirlwind of tests, calls from doctors, visits, and planning.

I've had a bone scan (negative, to see if the cancer spread into my bones), and a CT-Scan to see if it spread in my body (again, negative).

They gave me 3 choices of what I could do.

1. Nothing. Hope for the best, and maybe have 10 years of good life.

2. Surgery to remove the prostate. This comes with many possible side-effects and after-effects which I wasn't happy with.

3. Radiation Therapy. 38 radiation treatments over 6+ weeks. The side-effects are way less than with surgery. It takes longer, and when I asked the doctor which plan he'd choose (after I had already made my decision), he said #3 for sure, which is what I decided to do.

So, I then asked, "I have a vacation(cruise) scheduled for the end of February, should I cancel now?", to which the doctor said absolutely not. With other things we have to do before radiation starts, and the backlog at the hospital, not to mention how extremely slowly prostate cancer spreads, we'll do the radiation therapy when I get back.

So, there's a few things I have to do in February, including a pre-op because they are going to insert 3 markers in/on my prostate for the radiation (more on this later), and a biodegradable sponge to move the prostate away from something else (missed what that was).

The markers are for the radiation machine, that has a small ct-scan built in, to note exactly where to shoot the radiation, so as to not hurt anything good in there.

The treatments will be 5 days a week, over a 6+ week period and work has already determined that I'd be fine working from home for those weeks. Have I mentioned, I have an outstanding boss? I'm very, very lucky.

Well... more as it comes. Keep those thoughts and prayers coming!
Thanks,

Dave

When it rains... it pours

 Well, on the 2nd anniversary of my heart surgery, I had to go in for a prostate biopsy, as my PSA numbers were quite high.

2 Weeks later... I learn I have intermediate prostate cancer. Cancer. The C word. I'm beyond scared at this point, and will learn later today, what all this means, and how they'll treat it. Already, I have 2 more tests coming up next week to see if it's spread.

I'm definitely losing sleep over this, and trying to not show anything as my wife's had enough to deal with that I hate burdening her with this.

More as I find out... 

Thanks

Dave

Time Flies, Part II

Well, it's now been roughly 9 months since my surgery, and I'm feeling great. I had a cardiologist appointment last week, and he said I was doing real well, lost weight, BP is down.. and I don't have to see him again for a year! That's good news. I'm still waiting for Covid to calm down to continue out Cardio Rehab.

My wife's doing real well too, her hair is growing back quickly (although VERY curly which is driving her nuts) but she's feeling well. She does however, drive me crazy by wanting to do too much. We're both getting older and need to pace ourselves lest we get into other problems. I try to keep us both safe.

On the flip side, our son (Mike) is having health issues, and at 35, is way too young for this. He's stubborn, obstinate, and real hard to deal with most of the time... and he's driving us crazy.

Gwen and I have stayed home through all this Corona stuff, with our daughter getting our groceries for us so we don't have to go into crowded stores (thank God for her). We have gone to her and her husband's house to see our granddaughter and to swim in their pool, but pretty much nowhere else. 

Our granddaughter is now 5 and growing like a weed! We were supposed to take them all to Disney World in July, but had to cancel and we re-booked for next July.

Well, enough for now.. got to run.

Thanks for reading...

Dave

Time flies when....

Wow, has it really been 7 years since my last post?
So much has happened... our daughter got married to a truly wonderful guy, a few years later, our first grandchild was born, Julia who is the sunshine in our lives now!
With the good, comes the bad....
My wife (Gwen) got diagnosed with cancer. The good news was, her oncologist said to us "if you had to get cancer, this is the one to get because it's 100% curable!". I promised my wife I'd be with her every step of the way until she was cured.
So, the night my wife had an operation to have a small tumor removed, I went home and when I went to bed that evening, I had severe chest pains. I thought it might have been what I ate, as the pain was directly in my sternum, and my right shoulder.
Turns out, it was what my doctor called, a "silent heart attack". From that day forward, if I exerted myself at all, I was getting chest pains. I went for test after test, while taking my wife to chemotherapy.
My doctors said I had a blockage (something I had been telling them since day 1), and they'd do the procedure to insert a stent. Just a few minutes into that procedure, they stopped and said that wouldn't work, as I had 3 blockages, and each one was 90% blocked. They said I'd have to have a triple bypass. Was I scared? On a scale of 1-10, I was a 50. All kinds of things went through my mind. I was hoping to have it put off until after my wife finished her chemo, but the doctor said, "are you kidding? We want to do this next WEEK!". It was that bad.
So, 2 days before Thanksgiving, November 26, 2019, I had my triple bypass.
I was scared out of my mind. I didn't want to leave my wife alone. I wanted to see my granddaughter grow up.
I woke up after surgery to hear my wife's voice. Her and my daughter were there for the few minutes that I was awake. The next time I woke up, a wonderful nurse named Tim, that was outstanding. He calmed me, answered every one of my questions, stayed with me, talked to me.. he was just great.
I was in the hospital for 4 days, going home on the 5th day. Recovery was tough, as I was sore as heck. Note, since the surgery, I hadn't really had any pain, just discomfort. Luckily, Gwen works from home so she was there every day, and our daughter helped out by getting us groceries, prescriptions and everything else. Oh, at that time, my wife wasn't driving as she had a couple of episodes on weekends of passing out. There was some problems with blood pressure medications they had her on, and that's fixed now. With the help of our daughter and my wife's niece, she's completed her chemo, and is now cancer free! I felt bad about not being able to go to the last 3 treatments she had... but I had a good reason.
So... after a lot of recuperating, I'm going to Cardiac Rehab, which is like going to the gym, but you wear a monitor. I have to do about 36 sessions of them, and I get real sore right after them. Oh well, anything to get better!
More soon....

575 – Sorry it’s been so long…

Well, my brother and I went on a nice, relaxing vacation down to Playa del Carmen, Mexico for 4 nights and it was great! The resort we stayed at was outstanding!

This was the view from our room! The water was warm and refreshing, the pools were extremely nice, and who can argue when you have an adults only pool with a swim-up pool bar! *S*

It was an outstanding resort (The Sandos Playacar), and everything was perfect.

(Click on a picture to ‘embiggen"’)

This is the adults only pool… just gorgeous and not too crowded. (If you click the photo, you can see my brother at the bar waving!)

Anyways, just wanted to drop a note that I’m still out here!

Have a wonderful week all!

574 – Wow, it’s been a while…

Well, it’s been over a month since I’ve posted.

Since then, my wife and I went to Mexico, and had a wonderful time at a nice, all-inclusive resort. It was GREAT to get away!

I got sunburnt on the first day (sitting at the swim-up pool bar, heh heh heh), but not bad enough to ruin the vacation.

The sun was nice, the beach was warm and clear water, the food outstanding.. and we met some great people.

The weekend after we got back, we got to puppy-sit our Grand-Puppy which my wife and I loved doing.

Now, my brother wants to go with me down South again, so on Friday June 7th, we’re taking our own trip down to Mexico to another all-inclusive resort! It’s just a short, 4 nighter, but it’ll be fun.

Hope everyone’s doing well!

573 – Almost Vacation

Last week of work before heading to Mexico for 5 nights at an all-inclusive resort. It’ll be nice to get away.

I still haven’t brought home my Corvette yet, as it’s still cool up here but I’ll probably bring it back the weekend I get back from our vacation.

Now I find out from my brother, he wants me to do another vacation with him this summer! Sign me up, we always have a good time.

Other than that, not much else new.

There’s so much bad news lately in our world, what with Texas, Boston.. and everything else, I hope you all find a bit of sunshine in your days.

More to come after vacation,

Dave