Bye

Well, it's time to get my new monthly dose of ammunition, sorry, I mean pills. As before, I have to get a bunch of blood tests first. Surprise! My PSA (prostate-specific antigen; the tumor markers) has dropped from 9.1 (the last month) to just 0.38, which is within the normal range. Everybody that I share this information with is over enjoyed, as if I've been cured of cancer. Pessimistic me, who knows that there's no fucking way for a stage-4 metastatic cancer to be "cured" in a month tells them to curb their enthusiasm. Let's see what the oncologist says.

Well, by now you know the drill. Go to the hospital, wait in line for one of the elevators, wait in a huge line to pay for "administrative services", wait for the doctor, get the prescription, go to the underground bunker for the pills, go back upstairs to sign for them, done. Well, another surprise. The office where I pay for "administrative services" has moved. It's a nice surprise - it has moved to a much larger room and there are 4 employees processing the patients instead of just 2. As a consequence, there is no line whatsoever and I'm processed immediately.

I pay the customary 30 euros and sign the customary bunch of forms. I ask them why do I need to sign these stupid forms every time. "Because you have to pay," is the unsatisfactory answer. Well, I have to pay at the supermarket, too - but they don't make me sign a bunch of stupid forms there. Whatever.

After a brief wait, the younger doctor appears with the prescription for the pills. He seems completely unphased by my blood test results. I ask him if the extremely low PSA levels are some kind of error and do I need to repeat the test. "No," he says, "it's completely normal to happen during the treatment. It's neither good nor bad news." Well, so pessimistic me was right (the curse of my life) - I wasn't magically cured of cancer in a month and continue dying on schedule.

A bit of good news, though, in a sense. I ask him whether it's true that this kind of cancer can enter the brain. He answers that while it's theoretically possible, it is extremely rare. It is much, much more likely that I'll die first because it has entered my liver or lungs, or has destroyed the nerve center in my spine that controls my heart. Yay, I guess. It's a kind of death I'm willing to tolerate. It's feeling my intellect fall apart where I draw the line and find unacceptable.

I ask him about something else. I've read that Scott Adams (the author of the Dilbert comic strip) suffers from the same kind of cancer (although he's in a much more advanced stage and has only a few months left) and has become recently paralyzed because the cancer metastases in his spine have destroyed the nerve centers that control his motor system. So, do I need to start looking for a wheelchair? If this is going to happen to me too, I better acquire one now, while I can still walk and look for one - because if I no longer can, I'd have nobody to do it for me (my mother can walk only if I hold her with both hands). The doc says that it's too early. While this can indeed happen, it's unpredictable whether and when it will happen, and there will be plenty of warnings as we observe the metastases spreading through my spine, so I'll have the time to do it then. Another yay, I guess.

He also schedules a new PET scan. Conveniently, the nuclear medicine lab resides in the same bunker where I get the pills from, so I go there to submit the necessary documents while fetching the pills. They warn me that, starting December 1, there is now a 50 euros fee for this procedure (before it was entirely free). Undoubtedly, this has been introduced with the sole purpose of annoying the patient. The actual procedure costs something like 3,000 euros and is paid by the health insurance; 50 euros don't make even the smallest dent on it, so the reason can't be financial.

I'm done for today; time to take the bus home. I'll probably sleep off the rest of the day; I've been feeling extremely tired lately. The doc says it's from the medicine.