16-ish Month Update

[tom67inMA]

In two days it will be 16 months since my original diagnosis. October 19, 2018 was when I was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer. A week or so later a bladder cancer diagnosis was added. I started 2020 with a PSA of <0.01 and ended up in the ER because cancer had choked off my kidney. That was followed by a neuroendocrine prostate cancer diagnosis, which my oncologist claims developed separately from the original prostate cancer. A little over a month ago I started chemotherapy, and just yesterday had a new scan which showed significant improvement. Happy dance time!

To summarize using terms my doctors have used, the bladder cancer has not recurred and is presumed cured, the original prostate cancer is in complete biochemical remission, and the NEPCa is responding to treatment. Happy St. Patrick's day indeed!

As always, the much wordier version of the story with pictures is in my blog:

tominmotion.blogspot.com/20...

[LearnAll]

Keep moving warrior ! Wish you excellent luck !

[DarkEnergy]

I'm in track with you, diagnosed 09/11/18, PSA 1000+, significant lymph nodes, pelvic and vertebrae metastasis. Just PCa for me and still hormone sensitive as of 01/21/20: PSA <0.02, my last Taxotere infusion was 11/01/19.

Looks like you got a great doc in Natick. Was this your first chemo infusion?

I'm in the Medford, MA area, can't find any toilet paper, but milk, bread, eggs and beer are plentiful.

Think, you're still coding right? I'm split between some coding and technical lead stuff.

Great to hear when the odd are stacked against you - you break out winning!!!

[tom67inMA in reply to DarkEnergy]

I've had 2 infusions so far, not counting 6 docetaxel infusions last year.

I am still coding though right now I'm on disability leave. We switched over to scrum, so ideally there's no specific technical leads. Of course, our scrum master is also our manager which is a big no-no.

I do like my doc. He used to be at Dana Farber, and my guess is he set up his own practice to get out of the city. It seems he still had lots of contacts there, and I know my case had been before a tumor board, so for all I know some of the best minds in the area (and I would include his) have provided input to my treatment, and I don't need to go into the city at all.

Are you still working? If so, do you find it strange to deal with scanxiety while working? When we would have a planning meeting near a follow-up appointment, I really wanted to put an asterisk on any commitments I might make.

[DarkEnergy in reply to tom67inMA]

"We switched over to scrum"

I'm old school, do not stand up and blabber...

So, "Technical Lead", is really an HR term to get higher salary than just a "software developer"... 😉

I work for a very large healthcare company, patient integration stuff with everything.

I'm an DFCI specimen, a bit brash so get attention, I'm happy with my care at the moment. Natick is nice, you are lucky having your doc connected, all the best!

I'm employed as implied above, my team is all remote, but I'm local to the office, so sometimes show up. I like getting grief from the in house developers.

My co-workers do not know I have PCa...

[pjoshea13]

Hi Tom, Good news in these grim times. Keep well! -Patrick

[Lyubov]

Great news!

[dockam]

Yay! Great news Brother, you saw on FB my news, I'll post on HU later

Fight on

Randy

[MateoBeach]

What is the "social distancing" equivalent of a scrum? A connection of teammates pushing together for a common goal. Tough ruggers they.

[tom67inMA in reply to MateoBeach]

When we first switched to scrum and didn't know what we were doing, a big blizzard hit so we ended up doing a 6 hour meeting with everybody video conferencing in from home. We also have scrum teams across wide geographic regions working together. It's always fun trying to find a meeting time that works for San Diego, Natck (MA), and Budapest. Is that distant enough?

[GreenStreet]

Good news. Keep going and best wishes

[RayF]

Great news Tom! Nov 2018 for me, continuous ADT, fortunately PSA is undetectable. Best to you.

[j-o-h-n]

Super Dave........ was that real?

Terrific Tom........................ KungFlu

Good Luck, Good Health and Good Humor.

j-o-h-n Wednesday 03/18/2020 6:41 PM DST

[tom67inMA in reply to j-o-h-n]

You must have watched "Bizarre" when it was on, no?

[j-o-h-n in reply to tom67inMA]

Yes.........

Good Luck, Good Health and Good Humor.

j-o-h-n Wednesday 03/18/2020 7:36 PM DST

[GoBucks]

Excellent read. Sounds like you will have time to watch a long series like Curb.

[tom67inMA in reply to GoBucks]

I just started watching "Extras" on Netflix and "Horrible Histories" on Hulu. Also really enjoying "Comedy Bang Bang" on Netflix.