Follies

The treatments are going smoothly - a veritable routine. I start off by going to the lobby on level B early for my appointment. I found I would often be treated earlier if one of the other patients was late which was more often than not. If I didn’t get called it was just fun to get to know the other patient waiting their turn. After a while you start to look forward to treatment just to meet up with your lobby friends. Sometimes you see the patient or it’s the wife of a prostate patient and in one case the mother of the patient.

I had noticed this mom earlier in my treatment. She would sit by herself in one of the corners head down with an empty stroller. That meant her child was being treated for cancer. I knew it must be heart wrenching for her to be there. So I went up to her and introduced myself and asked how her child was doing. I expected to hear the story of a brain or spinal cancer. She floored me when she told me her two year old had prostate cancer.

Kids are often treated for eye, brain and spine cancers which are not easily treated by other means without severe complications. All of the radiation treatments, protons or x-rays require the patient to lie as still as possible when he is zapped. Since children are not capable of understanding the need to be still they are anesthetized for every one of their treatments. In this case of a two year old little boy he had identical treatments to us with the addition of being anesthetized and because of his age had chemo. Amazingly the youngest child I heard of treated for prostate cancer was 18 months old.

I honestly enjoy the patient camaraderie in the waiting room. It is a very unique experience. I can't really put into words but when treatment ends I will miss this connection to all of these people.

This week one of my new patient friends Steve and his wife Carol, Connye and I went to Palm Springs for a matinee and dinner. If you are in the mood for something different you have to go to the Palm Spring Follies http://www.psfollies.com/ check it out. It is one of the funniest stage shows I have seen in a long time. The dancing is very good. The costumes are stunning and the dancers are very sexy. All of the dancers had impressive resume of Toni’s, Broadway repertoire and highly acclaimed careers. Here is the shocker. The youngest dancer is 58 and the oldest show girl is 84, the oldest show girl on record. Sitting in the row 12 you could not only not tell the age nor guessthey were the age they claimed. They danced like very young dancers. Yes, they leapt and did the splits like the young. Definitely worth going!

Dinner was at a restaurant called Johannes. Excellent with good atmosphere. I would go again.

It is hard to believe I have now reached the 80% completion mark with nine treatments left. I am now officially feeling short (short on time in Loma Linda).

Found the Mountains

As far as treatments go this week is much the same as prior weeks. I have now hit the 2/3 mark. I am zapped every day with little change in routine. Every day has been on time with a few earlier than scheduled. Earlier lets me play tennis which I have recently taken up after a 15 year hiatus. Tennis is a tough game. It requires a lot of precision in timming and control. I am getting more consistant. I'm getting better.

I am now experiencing a side effect of the treatment, slow urinary stream. It's annoying to stand there and wait for it to start and then dribble out. The odd thing is slow urination happens from about 7:00PM to about 5:00AM. Why then? I just don't know. All other times it’s normal. There is no pattern I can associate with food, fluid, alcohol or any other consumption. It may be just associated with the body slowing down in anticipation of going to sleep. Advil helps some but does not really work well. The general reason slow urination is so common is the protons attack everything within the prostate which includes the urethra. If you remember the urethra goes through the center of the prostate. It’s in the direct line of fire. It get’s inflamed. I would also not be surprised if the two sphincters on each side of the prostate and the bladder also feel some of the effect of the protons and become irritated.

The good news is everything else works normally.

Although tennis dominates two days a week it is not all we do. Since Connye has been back we have gone in search of tourist stuff and visits to relatives in the area. I’m really surprised how many relatives we have close to Loma Linda. With each stop we have also tried to find a hike just to make sure we both get exercise. This last Friday we went to Idyllwild where Connye has a cousin and where we also found a very nice hike in Humber Park, Devil’s Slide trail.

Connye at the Devil's Slide Trail head

On Sunday Connye whent to visit a good friend in San Diego and I went up the local mountains to Forest Falls to hike the Vivian Creek trail. The hike was recommended by the radiation technicians on gantry one, the machine I am treated on. It is a kike quite similar to Mt. Sanitas in Boulder. For those not familiar with either trail they are steep with numerous switch backs and take about an hour to get up almost 2,000 feet. It was fun to be outside enjoying the cool air of the mountains. It felt particularly good to not get winded going up to 7,000 feet. I think I am actually staying in shape.

Coming down Vivian Creek trail

Connye's Back

Yesterday afternoon completed my 26th treatment. Only 19 to go. If there are no machine problems I am on target for finishing treatment May 8. Realistically I expect to be finished the following week. Time is just flying by.

Yesterday Connye returned from her two week hiatus back home to visit with friends from England and to take care of house business.

Not much to report except treatment is going well with no side effects of any consequence. There is one minor effect which most of us feel. The proton beam does affect the prostate and hence the urethra and possibly the neck of the bladder. The effect is to make it a little more difficult to urinate because of inflamation. In my case I seem to be fine with just taking Advil. some have had to take stronger solutions such as Flowmax.

Wasabi

The hard work of being in Loma Linda is not the treatment. It's keeping up with choices of things to do. Except for the worst case we are feeling very good. I go to the gym about three days a week. Lately I have taken up tennis again. I'm getting tanned. In general I feel great.

One of our new friends organized a sushi class. Connye's brother, Craig, had a chance to join us. We learned more about sushi than I ever though I there was to know. I still don't know enough.


My first sushi creation

That's no guacamole. That is one hot bowl - all Wasabi