More Ever Decreasing Circles

You may not have to go onto Casodex and if your PSA etc are all still good I doubt your Onco will change anything. I do wish Urology would figure out what is causing so many UTIs though the catheterising in itself must be a worry not to mention an incovenience. Would a longer term catheter reduce the infection risk I know the most recent ones have really discrete day bags and the whole thing only has to be changed about every 8 weeks.

The 6 week course with Bath University is entering week 5, last week was tough but I was quite chuffed when my paper on p53 and VEG-F got the green light. I am not sure how chilled is finding it as he did not comment last week. I just wish it was Pca related so I am looking forward to October 13th when the course with you begins.

I am sure I will see you before your next round of travels sometime after the wedding.

Good luck with everything xxx

Mo

Best of luck with your upcoming PSA test Paul, i will be thinking of you.

Just to let you know as of today still no wedding invite http://community.prostatecanceruk.org/editors/tiny_mce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-innocent.gif after all i have met your daughter, does that not count.

So of you go on your travels again, hopefully we can all meet up before Christmas.

Best of luck mate

Si  

Thanks guys, it's Friday when I have my appointment. Just three weeks to the wedding. If your invite has not arrived yet you must have missed the cut. I recommended you all to my daughter but she kept insisting on her friends, selfish I know but there you go!

Thanks Lyn. I have never been good at knowing my limitations and have found it hard to realise that with all the impact of the HT I need to pay better attention to it. At times I have got better and recognize in advance when I need to have a break. Gone are late night sessions completing work, pushing extra stuff in and doing it in the evenings. I know I need to relax more. It's hard to describe fatique to someone. If you say you are tired it doesn't really cut it. We all get tired, we rise above tiredness when we have to do something. I find that I cannot rise above fatique when it happens. There is something qualitatively different about it which just signals I have to stop and rest. As most of my work is through my brain it's not a physical problem alone. My brain becomes a little fuzzy and if I am doing a report or an article which needs me to be on my best form I find I simply cannot do it.

Some will say well you are getting older so that is also a factor. Well yes and no. I think the deterioration we get as we age naturally is different. I did not anticipate my thinking skills getting less from age and indeed when I am fully rested I am still as sparky as normal. So I think fatique described a distinct bodily reaction to HT, which is progressive, I feel worse now than I did two years ago and if I don't account for it I come to a standstill anyway, as I did once or twice in Hong Kong. To be honest I hardly got out in HK as between teaching sessions I just rested to avoid this mind numbness!

Hey ho, it keeps me alive for now so I am not complaining but trying to name it so I can plan better for it and hopefully avoid retirement for lots of reasons.

Good luck today Paul....and just seen your post about your dilemma as i specifically searched out your thread to wish you well.

You prob won't see this in time but if it is a new consultant why don't you ask what their experience is. I often wonder why the consultants at Doncaster don't to prostectomys. They are used to the question of experience as men opting for surgery often discuss their experience with them.

I think Lyn is right. The urologist for the urinary tract stuff and oncologist for the PCA. Of course you do then have the dilemma of whether they have the experience or not but you can ask. Having said that the Weston Park oncologist spends a day a week at the urology out patients...you'd like to think they are sending someone who is experienced

Bri

Good news Paul. Excellent that you are under the clinical lead. So Mr P has gone (brianissac is always a reliable source ;-)

I thought about you as I drove through Tickhill on my way home from work tonight.

Hopefully the new antibiotic regime will sort the persistent u ti ' s.

Paul I wouldn't focus on 2015..look at other men who have been where you are at and worse and still alive and kicking many years later, focus way beyond 2015 mate.

See you soon

Bri

Thanks Bri and Lyn. I just want to say something of the realist in me which resists this sense that I have years stretching ahead for me as you suggest Bri, though I understand and appreciate why you say this. From the outset my mind set has been focused on the present, ensuring I have as much quality time as I can in whatever time remains. I am less concerned about quantity, in many ways I let the disease take care of itself. It will eventually transform and my life will become sticky. But I resist making predictions about long term survival. I think for three reasons.

Firstly it goes against the diagnosis. I have bone met spread and sit firmly in the incurable and ultimately terminal camp. I will take whatever time is given me of course I will but I never lose sight of that outcome.

Secondly dreaming you have lots of time leads to planning and expectations. I think one reason why this assessment was uncomfortable was that I so wanted to do the things I have planned up to the new year. I built up the check up and became concerned lest something got in the way. I have avoided that thus far and stayed more in the present.

This then is my third reason. This stems from that 'fiction of immortality' I talked about in the old file, ever decreasing circles. I am under no illusion that death is a 100 per center. So it happens to be this disease which will in all likelihood end my Iife but something else could intervene. Given that acceptance I can stay in the present. In my head tomorrow is what matters. I have found my life much richer for this focus than it has been for some years. So whilst I am caring for the present time takes care of itself. So in January I can look back and say I have made three years. If I make another three I will have filled my life with so many good memories. I don't need the fiction of immortality. I believe this is what TopGun did so well in what was a relatively short period left to him in the end. His motto is at the top of my favourite phrases. Ben also understood this too so well.

I do this becaue I do not want the disease to dominate my life. When people say to me you look well they do not need to know the disease is lying there waiting to pounce. I am for that day well and therefore that's enough. This for me is an optimistic philosophy that sustains me in moments of doubt. Hope these thoughts may mean something for others on this site.

Three days and counting?