Post

Cancer - It's why I'm poisoning myself.

Posted Updated
By Herrick Spencer
views 10 min read

I’m making this series of posts mainly to keep those who ask updated on my progress battling cancer.

Newest Updates.
If you just want to know what is going on, and don’t want to read the whole long diary of events, just jump to the Newest Updates.

TLDR: I have stage IV prostate cancer, with 4 metastatic sites on pelvis and spine. My PSA (number to track aggressiveness) has dropped from 14.8 to 0.15! (as of July ‘24). The plan is to do 6 rounds of chemo, 3 weeks apart. I have very few symptoms from cancer, but many from the cure, tiredness and bone pain mainly. If you have questions then let me know, especially if you are starting your own journey and want advice.

Poison is good for you

When receiving chemo injections, I’m always reminded of the Star Trek movie where they go back in time to 80’s Earth. There’s a scene where Bones walks by a chemo patient and remarks how barbaric this practice/treatment is. He proceeds to wave a tri-corder (or whatever, nerds) over the patient and cure them. Unrelated he also helps another patient regrow a kidney/liver. Yet the overall concept of this theme is how utterly barbaric our current medical treatments are for Cancer. Deciding the best way to treat a small section(s) of the body that have grown malignant cells by poisoning the entire body for months seems utterly ridiculous at the outset…. but it is the current height of medical care. However… it really seems like the insurance companies are getting in the way of advancing beyond this barbaric practice of poison or massive doses of radiation as a ‘cure’; aka ‘the standard of care’.

Yes, I do have prostate cancer

Diagnosed in May, I actually started having symptoms as early as December. Below you can find the general timeline of events leading up to my treatment.

December ‘23 : Symptoms

My symptoms were so small that it was a ‘just a part of getting old’ explanation. The symptoms I had were urgency to peeing and frequently peeing without feeling like it was completed. As well, urination at night came out in a very slow fashion, taking 6+ minutes at times. So I resolved to make a check-up with my PCP (Primary care provider.. aka ‘my doctor’). This took 2 months since she has a very busy schedule.

Mid-February ‘24 : Primary Checkup

Had my checkup with my primary doctor. But… it is unfortunate we waited so long, because in hind-sight this would have allowed me to have a bit less traumatic treatment. She decided it would be good to do a simple panel of blood test to determine my PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) level. Unfortunately this was about 2yrs too late, as I should have been doing this since I was 50. I likely could have done this at 40 if I’d known there was a history of cancers in our family too.. go get yourself tested! It is easy and covered by all(most?) insurances as a preventable measure.

My level came back a bit high, 5.96, which should be less than 2.5, ideally zero. So she referred me to a urologist…

Early April ‘24 : Urologist

Scheduling the urologist appointment took forever (2 weeks but I was really impatient for good reason), likely due to this condition being so pervasive. First step at this appointment was to re-take the PSA test, to which it was shown as super aggressive, hitting 14.8, nearly tripling the previous result!

He then did what he called the “proctologists handshake” and as soon as I saw his face I knew the answer. Combined with the sudden onset of symptoms in December, and what his stinky fingers perceived, his response to me asking “How sure are you of this?” and he replied that “[he] has been wrong in the past, but rarely.”

This led to an appointment to get an MRI, in order to schedule a biopsy.

April 12, ‘24 : MRI

Although the urologist said to wait a day to schedule the MRI due to insurance reasons, I did it right outside the office. I wasn’t waiting anymore. I had the MRI only because the insurance denied the PET scan (which they would eventually have to pay for as well). The MRI can only show something is going on in an area, but not if it is prostate cancer or just an old injury from skiing. PET scan actually lights up any area that has actual prostate cells growing, ensuring that you know there is a cancer site in that area, especially if it has metastasized (spread outside of the prostate).

This MRI showed that there was likely two sites on either side of my pelvic bone. As well it showed suspicious area on my lower spine. This of course led to the scheduling of a biopsy to confirm the sites on the prostate were indeed cancer.

April 25, ‘24 : Biopsy

Note: I wore a shirt to this appointment that said:

Whatever hits the fan will be evenly distributed

The biopsy was rather easy… just had to fast and blow water up my butt prior to the surgery.

The surgery itself was over in about 15min and I was recovering in the next room for about 30min. Fiona brought me a brownie which is our tradition to have a sweet ready for after surgery care… it is highly recommended.

The results showed positive of course. No positive way to say this.

Lupron shot: Hormones are a food?

About this time the Urologist ordered for me to have hormone blockers and hormone uptake inhibitors. This comes in the form of a 3mo slow release shot in the belly, that I’ll likely be on for life, as well as some pills to take twice a day. This treatment is due to the prostate cells; and its ugly cousin prostate cancer cells; using testosterone as a main source of food.

Let’s dive into the fascinating world of prostate cancer and its hormonal foes. 🕵️‍♂️

Testosterone Blockers: These stealthy agents are like bouncers at an exclusive nightclub. They stand guard, ensuring that testosterone—the hormone that prostate cancer cells crave like a late-night snack—doesn’t get past the velvet rope. By blocking testosterone’s VIP access, they leave those cancer cells sulking in the corner, wondering why their favorite party drug isn’t showing up. 🎉

Uptake Inhibitors: Picture them as the traffic cops of the prostate highway. Their job? To slow down the delivery trucks carrying testosterone. They set up roadblocks, detours, and even throw in a few potholes for good measure. As a result, testosterone arrives at the cancer cells fashionably late, and those cells grumble, “Ugh, this hormone delivery service is worse than Uber during surge pricing!” 🚚

Together, these hormone warriors put the brakes on prostate cancer growth, leaving the unruly cells wondering if they accidentally stumbled into a low-energy yoga class. Namaste, cancer cells. Namaste. 🧘‍♂️🌿

Source: Conversation with Copilot, 7/13/2024 (1) Hormone therapy for prostate cancer - Mayo Clinic.. (2) What Are Antiandrogen Medications, and How Do They Work? - GoodRx.. (3) How Do Antiandrogens Work? - Uses, Side Effects, Drug Names - RxList. .

May 3, ‘24 : Bone Scan

So due to the MRI showing metastasis in bones, next step was a full body bone scan… which should have been a PET scan to avoid extra cost to insurance, but I don’t want to tell them how to do their job. This scan showed all the bumps and bruises I’d gotten in my life, including the Pelvic, T10 and L4 sites of cancer. However, I’m not sure what good it did, since all the other sites like bad knee from skiing also showed as suspicious. So this showed basically additional info to the MRI, but really wasn’t all that useful, just as an excuse to the insurance company to be able to do the PET scan.

May 13, ‘24 : PET Scan

The PET scan was basically the same as the MRI, but with a different type of contrast put into the veins. PET scans are likely the best (and probably expensive due to resistance to use them). The concept from a lay person me is that they load your blood up with irradiated neutered testosterone and then wait for the cancer cells to eat them all up. They are neutered so they don’t help the cancer at all, but instead emit a radiation that can be picked up by the scanner, similar to an MRI but in reverse. This only detects prostate cancer cells, which is the point. However while discussing this with the technician, he layed out the cost to each of the parts of the process. Ultimately, it went above $15,000 US. Glad I’m not paying for this! Especially grateful for not having to pay for it and the other scans that were less useful.

This scan finally showed the exact locations of all my legions, without any noise of other non-cancer sites.

May 14, ‘24 : Oncologist - treatment plan

Oddly enough, this was the first time I met with anyone in the oncology field. However, they all are basically in concert, so the urologist knows exactly what the standard care will be, and follows that up to the point we met. Yet, one thing that changed form this visit is due to the fact that there were now five sites, instead of 3 or 4. This changed the standard of care to be chemo-therapy instead of radiation or removal of the prostate. If there was not metastasis then removal or radiation would have been the choice, with its own set of post removal difficulties. Due to having one too many sites, I was tossed from that plan and into the chemo track. This means no removal (called resection) of the prostate, but just hormone and chemo-therapy. After this is done, if anything is left living (hopefully I will be) then a decision to do radiation may be taken. So that is the plan of record for now.

One important note… due to hormone therapy alone, my PSA had come down to 10.96 by this point! Even prior to chemo.

On to the updates… of all the Chemo-Therapy fun, including getting my injection port installed to allow ease of injections and blood draws.

Updates

Links to posts will be added below as they are created.

Life, Cancer
Cancer
This post is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by the author.