talkingaboutcancer.com

In the midst of a battle with cancer, we often find ourselves wishing for something that makes others think we are going a little batty.  It is important for all of us to understand that things are just not very simple at times.

Case in point.  In my personal cancer journey, I live with the knowledge and expectation of further metastases.  New lesions will likely occur in the bones and, based on previous experience, will hurt like hell.  So naturally, I expect to experience bone pain that will steadily grow over time.  I also look for increases in my PSA which is an indication that the cancer is actively growing somewhere.  When one or both of these occur, then I will undergo a bone scan and, if necessary, an MRI.

For quite a while now, I have been living with a growing pain in my right rear sacrum area which I thought was very suspicious.  In August, a bone scan and x-ray showed no indication of new mets and my PSA was still undetectable.  With the pain continuing, I had an MRI in October and am still waiting for the results.  Meanwhile, my PSA has started to rise.

So here it is.  I want the MRI to show something.  I want to see a metastatic lesion.  Does that sound strange?  A few people I said this to looked at me like I was nuts.  But here is my reasoning….

I have metastatic cancer that is incurable.  It will spread.  I don’t like it, but I know it.  All I can really do is to treat the pain (and do some chemo to help strengthen my bones a bit).  This means taking more and more morphine as required.  But, I can also have radiation therapy on the site if we can see it. Radiation therapy will reduce the pain and might even stop that particular spot from growing much more.  But so far, since nothing has shown, we can’t treat it and I have to live with a pain that is increasing daily (it seems) and have to take more morphine, which has all sorts of side effects that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.  If the MRI shows something, then we can pinpoint the new lesion and treat it.  If it doesn’t, well…. I’m not sure what I’m going to do.  I sure hope we find something.

Make sense?

Posted by Doug 

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