My uncle has a poor choice in motor vehicles. Against my advice, her recently bought a 16 year old junk heap which subsequently cost, in addition to the £1200 he overpaid, a further £1000. For £2,200, I advised him, he could have laid down a deposit on a brand new vehicle and take out a PCP deal over three years paying around £120 a month for a decent vehicle covered by warranty and that would start first time.
I digress. Yesterday, I felt like the junk heap he had purchased. Pricked more times than a monkey falling into a cactus plant, I had my follow up CT and bone scan. The last time I had scans was a year ago. Back then, three lymph nodes were involved and the bone scan was clear albeit it was showing darker areas where my bones and joints are succumbing to the ravages of being on ADT for two and a half years and middle age. My PSA also just rocketed to 13 having gradually crept up from 1.6 over the past year.
During the bone scan, the screen to the left of me showed two black screens and as the plate passed over my body, I could make out hundreds of twinkling lights. I really hope this wasn't indications that I am lighting up like a Christmas tree. Also, they had to re-scan my hip which wasn't exactly reassuring.
Tomorrow, I return for the results. I dread this appointment like a convicted killer might dread sentencing and am sitting here alone in my lounge imagining all kinds of scenarios: multiple lymph node involvement, attachment to major organs, multiple bone metastases. I am scared, my heart is aching with fear, my mind buzzing with 'how long left?'
I was under the impression that bone mets indicate the final stage and that the median time from discovery of these to death is 18 months. I am just so scared of a future I now have no control over and that primary and secondary treatment have failed to address the inexorable rise in PSA. I feel that I am being conventionally treated with no left field thinking. Maybe that is unfair on my consultant but know the reality is chemo then death - or does it have to be this way?
Physically, I feel great and normal, asymptomatic and without any pain. My only issues are the psychological damage this disease is causing, grade three gynocomastia and extreme fatigue - but I can live with those. What I cannot live with is further progressively bad news and no hope. I fear tomorrow as if it were my execution day. Maybe it will be.
Bazza
Edited by member 17 May 2017 at 12:51
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