Talking Frankly about Living with Advanced Cancer

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Hello everyone i have been living with a pancreatic cancer reoccurrence after chemo and surgery and more chemo with clean margins but had no radiation for a year and a half. (i mention radiation because my daughter a geriatric and internal medicine doctor at UCLA, told me radiation is now the standard of care after surgery ,as well as chemo ) i have had this reoccurrence with mets to the lungsfor about a year and a half. The mets in lungs which when big enough can be ablated and disappeared but now too many small ones are there. i have been lucky that everything is slow growing and try to focus on that. it is however anxiety producing knowing the other shoe will drop any second but not this one. i realize i still feel good enough to do a lot but feel dragged down also so it's a battle. i am lucky to live with my grandchildren whom i still care for 12,9, and 5 year olds. They give me lots of love and support as does my son and daughter. I used to be a teacher and enjoy being around children. Even with cancer there are things to feel lucky about and I try to focus on those things. I'm 72 so not young and am thankful for getting it now instead of earlier. Still the other shoe will drop hence anxiety in back of my mind always.

I only had a few months free and when I was to begin radiation they found lesions in the liver..so no radiation. I tried a clinical trial for my rare genotype but that too failed after a couple of months. Now on Onivyde chemo combo and will find out next week if things are stable. I know what you say about anxiety for the future and like you try to find as much joy in the present. As my Oncologist told last week, "LIVE Brenda, live, don't put off enjoyment, however you define that. We all put off things, enjoy life now." Let's keep each other in a positive attitude. I would like to continue to hear about your status,

I am very glad yesterday is over! I didn't really expect much to come from this doctor meeting but after all was said and done it worked out for the best. He read my print out on the effects of Chemo on Peripheral Nephropathy and my thoughts on radiation and then finally suggested (after a simulated 'strip search' while dictating to his Scribe) Hormonal Therapy in the form of an injection of Eligard, leuprolide acetate, every three months with a prescription of Bicalutamide to help with the hot flashes. He also did lab work to measure my Testosterone which to the best of my knowledge had never been performed on me. So in three months I will walk in his office with fingers crossed to see what has developed. I did ask him why in November my PSA was 7.6 and in January was 2.83 and his only response was "One of them was a lie"! Knowing the circumstances I can guess which one.

Hi Gingerw: They won't let me make the same post twice because I already posted yesterday's 'challenge' to @colleenyoung. Is there a way you can reference her to see what transpired at the Urologist's office?

@dutchman09 I see the post you created telling us about your visit, with the addition of some injections and medication. Well, I had to smile at his response to your question about the two radically different values for the PSA test!

How do you feel today? Was it worth the visit? Do you feel your concerns were addressed?
Ginger

I believe the visit was worth it. He did address two of my concerns, namely Chemo and Radiation and forwarded a prescription supposedly to help with hot flashes. How do you women put up with that thing? I've yet to figure out the two radically different PSA values especially since I have them both on paper! My next step will be to wait until the May appointment to see if this Hormone Therapy really works and what the next step(s) might be. I do feel much more at ease than I did driving to his office on Tuesday morning not knowing what to expect and never having met him in that office.

@dutchman09 Very glad to hear your satisfaction with the appointment! Something I was thinking about, regarding the radically different lab results. I know that different labs and reporting machines, can skew results. That is, in my monthly labwork, depending on which lab processes it, the resulting values can vary, sometimes significantly. Or, perhaps a machine needs recalibration?

Good luck on the hormone therapy for hot flashes. It will be interesting to see how it all works for you! I have dealt with them for decades. Wear layers, drink cool water. Some people take herbal supplements.
Ginger

Thank you very much, John, for the informative links. They might help me sort things out!

After reading your entry I got to thinking about the different Lab results and found out the first one in November was from Lab Corp in Phoenix. The second one was from a private Urologist (that I found on the Internet) who used an obscure Lab in Linden, N.J. which had a terrible two star rating. I happen to know the area since I used to drive tankers out of Linden which has a huge gasoline tank farm next to the N.J. Turnpike. After reading some of their reviews I'm positive that's where the discrepancy came from. That Urologist's reviews were also dismal but that's my own fault!

What kind of herbal supplements work against hot flashes? On Tuesday the doctor prescribed Bicalutamide 50mg tablets which are supposedly in the mail. I took that for two years to lower my PSA till they stopped working.