State of the Ape Before anything else, thanks for your prayers.

The radiation therapy is finished. In a few weeks they’ll take a look and see how well it worked. (Alas, I was zapped with X-rays, not gamma rays, so I won’t develop any superpowers or turn into the Incredible Hulk.) The back/rib pain is still there but controllable with steroids and acetaminophen.

The hormone therapy appears to be working. I had blood work done yesterday and my PSA number has dropped to 25. Still too high, but 6x is better than 1050x.

The only other problem is that I get tired easily, but I don’t know whether that’s due to the cancer or the meds or both.

I’ve managed to make some progress with my writing. I had started work on a children’s SF serial that I hoped to sell to a magazine, but discovered when the first draft was done that I hadn’t read the fine print closely enough; so I turned it into a novelette. The health problems caught me in the middle of final revisions; they’re now complete and the story is in the hands of a copyeditor. The cover designer, unfortunately, has come down with COVID, so that’s on hold (prayers for him would also be appreciated; his name is Noel).

The Bride’s new novel (first in a new series) is now available for pre-order on Amazon. Posted by Bob the Ape 10:36 AM

Life-Changing Event I don’t usually post a lot of personal things on this blog, partly because of natural reticence and partly because our family life has always been remarkably uneventful (a great blessing). During the past two weeks, however, life has changed.

Things actually started a couple of months earlier, when I began having more or less constant back pain; nothing too serious and bearable with ibuprofen, but enough to interfere with my sleep. There were a few times when there was also severer pain in one or the other thigh at the groin.

I also began to experience shortness of breath after any activity involving stooping and standing. This I thought might be the effect of tachycardia, a long-standing condition that may have been getting worse.

It was necessary to see my doctor anyway to renew my antidepressant, so my wife and I went on Thursday May 19. He was puzzled by both the back pain and the tachycardia; he gave me an in-office EKG for the latter but found nothing abnormal. So he put me on a medication to slow the heart and ordered X-rays and blood work. These we had done the next morning.

The testing was done through St. Luke’s Hospital, which has facilities throughout our area, and with which I have had an account since my COVID vaccination. The results were posted later that same day. Nothing was of note except for something called the PSA (Prostate-Specific Antigen) number: the standard range is 0.0 – 4.0 ng/mL; my number was 4,244.9. This, as you might expect, sparked some angst at the prospect of at least more tests.

Then came Sunday May 22. During the night I had developed an ache in my right flank. By morning it had become a severe pain that finally caused me to vomit and collapse. My wife (having first caught and eased me to the floor) called 911 and I was taken to the emergency room. The initial thought was that I might have a kidney stone, so I was given a CAT scan. This revealed that the problem was not a kidney stone; it was a fractured rib, the rib having been weakened by a metastasized lesion.

In short (subsequent tests confirmed) I have stage 4 prostate cancer that has spread to my bones and lungs.

It was God’s blessing that we had gotten the PSA number before the diagnosis, so that we weren’t completely blindsided.

I was in the hospital for 5 nights, finally going home on Friday May 27, during which time I underwent blood tests, more CAT scans, X-rays, MRIs, and a biopsy and we (I use “we” advisedly since my wife is the brains and organization of our marriage) spoke with an array of different doctors: oncology, urology, palliative care, etc. Steroids and painkillers took care of the pain from the broken rib and also the chronic back pain I had been experiencing. By the end of my stay I was actually feeling much better.

The plan is to concentrate on hormone treatment rather than chemotherapy. Radiation is not useful, except for one small growth on my upper spine that is threatening the spinal cord. I was given the first hormone shots before leaving

A complication arose over the weekend after I got home. I had begun to have occasional episodes of hiccups on the Wednesday. These grew more frequent and more violent until they began to spasm and for a few seconds block me from breathing. By Sunday afternoon they were so bad that my wife took me back to the hospital. There they gave me a dose of Thorazine, which helped a great deal (Thorazine is a one-time anti-psychotic drug [when we learned this I told my wife that she was going to see a whole new side of me] which for some reason also alleviates hiccups). They did another CAT scan, kept me overnight, and sent me home with a prescription for a muscle relaxant.

I’ve been home since Monday May 30 and in good shape: little or no pain, no hiccup spasms. I’ve had 4 shots of radiation and 6 to go, and I’ve been given pills for a second set of hormones.

So much for the medical side so far. I expect to be posting updates as things happen.

[UPDATE 06/06/2022: I should have made it clear that everyone at St. Luke's - doctors, nurses, technicians, aides, etc., has done a wonderful job working with me and that I am deeply thankful for them. St. Luke's deserves its reputation as one of the best hospitals in the country.]

I don’t plan on posting deep reflections on the matter; my mind doesn’t work that way. I’m 66; many years ago I came to terms with the fact that I wasn’t going to live forever. I’m a practicing Catholic, so I have my faith to sustain me (and I trust that God will be there shoring up my faith when it’s weak); I received the Anointing of the Sick while in the hospital. Still, I would be most grateful if anyone who reads this and whose mind is inclined that way would pray for me and my family, that God may give us guidance and the strength to bear this cross. Posted by Bob the Ape 8:15 PM