Bye

Time for the next dose of pills. You know the drill by now, so I won't bother you with the details again. However, it's a once-in-a-month chance to talk to the oncologist live (instead of by e-mail or phone) and since he's helpful (the young doc), it means a chance of pestering him with my questions.

The most pertient one I have is something I didn't think of asking when he called me on the phone a week ago. He said that the main tumor was not gone - just stopped absorbing radioactive solution, which is why it was no longer visible on the scanner. But what about the secondary tumor in the lymph node? Is at least it gone - or has it become invisible for the same reason?

The doc shares some info I didn't know. Apparently, the hormonal therapy that I've been subjected to for several months already cannot cure cancer. It is not even trying. Its purpose is to try to keep the cancer under control - to stop its wild spreading, at least for a while. So, that secondary tumor is still there, alive and well, just "sleeping", like the main one. Which counts as good news in my situation, in the sense that "you'll die of cancer later" is better than "you'll die of cancer soon". There are really only three ways of treating cancer - it can be cut out (surgery, not applicable in my case), it can be burned out (radiotherapy, we'll be starting that soon), or it can be poisoned (chemotherapy, the last resort).

"But the cancer will eventually become resistant to the hormonal therapy, right?" I ask, because I read too much. The doc confirms that this is indeed the case but he cannot predict in advance when it will happen. "Could probably take 1 to 3 years," is his estimate. Since we're talking probabilities, he's probably lying, in order not to alarm the patient and the truth is probably half that. If I'm lucky. Which usually I'm not. In either case, it fits nicely with the prognosis that 5 years or less after diagnosis, I'll be only a memory.

He sends me off to the radiologist, who dwells in the basement bunker - where the PET scanner is and where I get the pills. The radiologist informs me that he plans to do 6 irradiation procedures. That's probably just a start. My aunt in California, who had breast cancer, was told initially "5 procedures". She underwent 25. They wanted to go for 30 but she just couldn't take it any more - half of her left lung had collapsed as a result. At some point the cure starts being worse than the disease and death starts looking like a relief.

The doc lists some trivial possible side effects that I won't bother you with (itching, swelling, etc.). "Could it cause cancer to the adjacent organs?" I ask. The doc assures me that it's impossible. Since I read too much, I know that he's either wrong or lying. It can cause bladder cancer. But it is not very likely, so I don't press the issue. Besides, relatively speaking, "maybe bladder cancer in the future" is preferable to "definitely prostate cancer that will kill me soon right the fuck now".

The other thing I want to know is whether I'll be dangerous to other people after the procedure and for how long. The doc assures me that this won't be the case. Unlike the PET scan procedure, I won't be injected with radioactive sollution leaving me radioactive for a while. Instead, a strong gamma ray beam will pass through me, hopefully destroying the cancer cells and not too much of anything else - but it won't make me radioactive. At least not too much and not initially. My aunt was setting off the radiation detectors at the airports for 3 years after her radiotherapies.

Before starting the procedures, the doc wants me to undergo some kind of scanning, the name of which I didn't quite catch, to see what's where in my body. It's neither a CAT, nor a PET scan. A mass scan or something like that. We schedule it for the next Tuesday, March 24. I'll keep you posted.