Well, the 48 treatments are coming to an end tomorrow April 8th. It has been a trip so far and I still have some more miles to go. Each week it makes you more tired and this last week has been the worst. I finally had to take two days off work this week. I had a long talk with the Doctor and while they never can tell you that you will be cured, he said he was highly confident that this was going to turn out just fine. The Cancer is mostly dead at this point. The remaining cells have been damaged to a point they can no longer divide and will die off for over the next several Months.
Everything inside is irritated that has been hit with the beam and that inflammation will subside in the next couple of weeks, there is really no pain, just a odd feeling. The fatigue will begin subsiding in about week or two, and if I can keep upping my activity, it will subside faster.
Other than the fatigue I have basically walked through this. I have been able to work and everything that was working before this started is still working, and should stay working.
This has gone faster than I expected it would. In the beginning 9 1/2 weeks seemed an eternity, and now it will be behind me in 24 hours. I will be tested and examined every 90 days. I have a Prostate so I will always have a PSA number. It should fall over time as the cells die off and reach a baseline number, the testing will probably begin at the six month mark maybe sooner. They are expecting spikes since the Prostate will be healing and cells dying off, so only experts will read the results. My general Physician would not have the expertise to interpret the results.
I have been told I will most likely be issued a student Pilots license shortly if they approve my waiver request, which is highly likely. I went up on Good Friday to take the Lawyer to his Vacation home for his Easter bash. The conversation with the command Pilot before we headed back gave me some perspective. He was in Somilia and Iraq and some other adventures in his career.
Since both of us had been in the Sh1t, I confided in him I think facing this Cancer had showed me l did not have the nerve I thought I did, or somewhere I had lost it. He put it into perspective for me. Our jobs were to come in, do our thing and leave, which lasted no more than two hours from dust off to left skid down. During that time we either lived or died, and then it was over. It was short segments of time, while they wore you down a bit, they had a beginning and an end.
I have no control over the situation, I am a passenger on this trip, it is not my skill or lack of that will determine the outcome, it is the skill someone else has that will determine the outcome. We are control freaks by nature and that makes us uncomfortable, no it downright scares us.
The trip back was great and I came away with a better understanding. Well folks, here we are. I am truly blessed having the support you all have given me. I hope you have learned a bit from my experience that you can use. Not much more to report. After my first test I will update you on the progress.
This has been quite an experience for me, and will continue to be and will be for sometime.
