This morning at 10:00 AM I have an appointment with my urologist to review the results of my recent PET-SCAN.
That PET-SCAN did not indicate that my prostate cancer had spread throughout the rest of my body. That's the good news. The bad news is that my PSA keeps rising at a rapid rate.
Six months ago, when my doctor noticed my PSA score dramatically increasing he wanted to start radiation and hormone therapy treatments to "get me a couple more years." He also wanted to do another biopsy to see if and how much of the cancer was still in my prostate gland. I turned him down immediately on both counts. He then suggested that I get a PET-SCAN and see him again in six months. That's where I am now today.
So today I will inform my doctor that I will not seek any further treatment for my prostate cancer.
No radiation therapy.
No hormone therapy.
No biopsies.
At eighty-four years old, I am not going to subject this old body to more stressful "treatments" to hold the possible spread of prostate cancer.
After seeing what my younger brother went through the last three years of his life with "treatments" only to die "cancer free" but of organ failure, that's route I'm not taking
After seeing my friend Rich S., who was first diagnosed with prostate cancer back in 2013 the same time I was only to have it return in 2019 and he got radiation and hormone therapy treatment only to have his urethra destroyed by scar tissue and now he has to pump his urine out of his bladder with a device while the doctors try to rebuild his urethra with flesh from the inside of his cheek, I'll pass on that "treatment" too.
I will tell my doctor the only thing I need from him is a diagnose of six months or less to live, if it should come to that. I may die of something else besides prostate cancer. It is well known that most men die WITH prostate cancer but not OF prostate cancer.
I will tell my doctor that I'm taking the "Watchful Waiting" route. If and when my prostate cancer spreads, then give me that six month prognosis so I can make plans for my Grand Exit.
This is one thing I know, I will not leave this world the way my brother did or the way Bill did. I will leave this world as I am now. Fully functional and taking care of myself. No prolonged, undignified, dependent on others, exit for me. I know that is the usual way in our Western culture for dying human beings to go. I have decided to go the way I help seven pets of ours go, on our own terms.
Today is just a formality. After my appointment today I go back to my day to day living the best I can with my stooped over body, aches and pains, calcified heart and slipping memory. My main objective right now is not to fall and injure myself.
Have a great day everyone!
My paternal grandmother was alive when I was but I don’t remember her because he died when I was two years old. She was an uneducated hillbilly from the western mountains of North Carolina.
She couldn’t read or write but she did chew tobacco and tell my Mother that dancing was “sinful.” Glad I didn’t know her.
My paternal grandfather died two years before I was born.
He was descended from Jonathan Tipton who immigrated to this country from Port Royale, Jamaica after the Great Earthquake of 1692 destroyed his rum barrel stave making business. He had money and brought a lot of land in Maryland. His grandson fought along George Washington during the Battle of King’s Mountain. His name was Major Jonathan Tipton and he was my six time great grandfather. He was also involved in the formation of the state of Tennessee when it broke off from North Carolina. He settled in those mountains of Western North Carolina and proceeded to produce a prodigious batch of Tipton’s of which I am descended from. My paternal grandfather was also an uneducated hillbilly from those same western North Carolina mountains bordering on Tennessee. He was in the lumber business and brought his nine sons to Pennsylvania during the depression because they were starving and he and his sons (two more born in PA) lived on his brother-in-law’s fruit and vegetable farm in southern Chester County as field labor. My father met my Mother during this time. My father had multiple scars on his back from beatings received from his father. Such was the nature of chid discipline in those days. He died in 1939, two years before I was born. My Mother never met him, only knew him as “Mr. Tipton.” After the experience with her father, she probably wouldn’t want to meet him either.
My maternal grandmother died at 29 years old giving childbirth.
She was from a long line of historical Quaker families in Pennsylvania. From her picture she was very elegant. She died before my Mother was two years old. My Mother often talked about her.
There was one great grandmother (my maternal grandfather’s mother) who I met only once. She was on her deathbed.
They brought up all us unwashed ruffian offspring to see her before she died. She was also a very elegant lady from another long line of Pennsylvania Quaker families. During the 1880’s she was an actress. All I remember about her was climbing those stairs to the third floor of the house where she lived with her daughter and seeing this very small bird like white haired lady in a bed. As we ruffians came in one by one she turned her head and smiled slightly and nodded her head every so slowly. I will always remember that moment. Years later a cousin gave me a report card that great-grandmother Isabella Donely (she was Irish) had attend a private girls school during her youth. Her grades were excellent. She was a far cry from my tobacco, “dancing is sinful”, paternal grandmother.
Now you know why my personality is so fucked. Look at my family tree.