the end is near now...

[c palmer]

my step uncle is dying. this is the
one who has had pca for over 25 years.

he is able to live at home with hospice care. he had a stroke in
march, which left him restricted on one side of his body. he constantly
drools and his speech is affected, but his mind if ok.

when he was in the hospital, they did the bone scan and told him that
his pca had grown greatly since his last bone scan. he is in some
pain now.


his psa has tripled from 100 to over 300 since the last psa test.


i just wish that he would have gotten some kind of treatment before it
got so serious instead of waiting till the last minute.

also found out that my other uncle just found out that he has throat
cancer, but then, he's been a smoker all his life.
i don't know how long they gave him to live. he lost his wife over a
year or two ago from alzhiemer's.

looks like there is going to be a run on caskets in our family this
year.

~ curtis

[Alan Meyer]

On 5/13/2013 3:13 AM, c palmer wrote:
> my step uncle is dying. this is the
> one who has had pca for over 25 years.

Sorry to hear about your uncles. Knowing that you're not a young kid,
I'm guessing that your uncles aren't too young themselves.

I wish them all the best.

Alan

[c palmer]

Sorry to hear about your uncles. Knowing that you're not a young kid,
I'm guessing that your uncles aren't too young themselves.

I wish them all the best.
          Alan

===> hi alan, this is one of those bittersweet things...

this man married my aunt (who was 80 at the time) over 12 years ago and
they are still very much in love.

when he told me of his pca and how long he's had it, i kept my mouth
shut because he said that he just wanted nature to takes its course. i
can respect a person's wishes.

he explain to me that he had two other brothers who got cancer and had
treatments and died. his last brother who died told him that he should
have never had the treatments. which is probably just more fuel for the
fire in how he believes.

as his psa slowly kept climbing, i had to bite my tongue.

it wasn't until this last year that his psa really starting to stay over
100 that i spoke up. both him and my aunt were talking with me about
how there last 12 years together has been so happy. that he tells her
that he loves her at least 10 times a day. you could just see how much
that they care for each other and that is when i spoke up. i explained
to him that getting lupron shots and casodex would not be any kind of
surgery or radiation, but would extend life if he wanted it. i told
both of them to talk it over and decide what they wanted to do, but
there was something out there that could extend life together for them -
as they know it.

well, he got the lupron shot and he took one casodex and his pain went
away. his x-rays are amazing in just how much cancer he has on his
bones and yet, it's able to get around without too much trouble. life
was good to them.

now, he's in pain and the pca is coming at him with a vengeance with a
bulldog grip. he sleeps most of the day away and since she is 93 now,
she has her own set of health issues do deal with. for example, she's
had both hips replaced but she is still in hip pain.

i feel like this step uncle is much like my own father when it came to
pca.

i clearly remember this incident.

my mother-in-law was just dx'ed
with an aggressive pancreatic cancer and was told that it's one of the
most painful cancers to die with. when i told my father this fact, he
looked at me and said (quote), aw, hell, cancer doesn't hurt. look
at me, i've got cancer all over my body now and i don't hurt....
(unquote)

during the last three years of my father's life, i clearly remember
this comment from him...

he was sitting in the back seat of the car sobbing and crying his eyes
out and through his tears he said, "when i said that cancer doesn't
hurt, i was wrong. it does hurt....."

if there is anyone who is reading these posts, this is one that they
need to take to heart. pca may start out small, but when it gets the
grip on you, your life will be in pain for the last three years of your
life. does someone want to know that if they are in a position to do
something about it before then? that is the question that they have to
ask themselves.

~ curtis