I’m not sure why this last increase in PSA and the prospect of more scans has me so freaked out. Sometimes I feel as if I’m about to lose it. I guess I’m not a good candidate for knowing much about my impending death. I read a variety of other people’s blogs and none of them seem to have anywhere near as much trouble keeping their anxiety under control as I do.
Perhaps I’ve been in denial all along and this set of circumstances is finally greater than my ability to deny, but that doesn’t feel right. I saw the image with the cancer spots and the radiation aperture drawn on it clearly enough. It sure felt real at the time and scared the hell out of me.
Maybe this time it’s the speed. My PSA was so low on casodex after the radiation treatment. Now it’s right back where it was before treatment started, the treatment was pure hell, and I was only off casodex for about a month and half.
What seems the hardest is the feeling of being so powerless and alone in dying. I have no reasonable hope for remission, so there’s no “focussing my hope” on that outcome. By alone I mean we all die alone, no one goes with us. I’m very, very lucky to have a wife who is wonderful and does a great job being available. It’s hard for her too. All she can do is watch, be with me, and offer to listen to me. She can’t make it go away. Ultimately, I’m the one who has to get control of the situation as best I can. The emotions are just so overwhelming. I started this blog to share my experiences. Right now it feels more like I’m documenting an ultra-slow motion train wreck where I die at the end.
Distraction, such as reading the news, writing these posts, or talking with folks sometimes helps, but even then the anxiety comes in waves. As I come to the end of this post, a wave of anxiety is starting to hit me. What do I do next?
Know how much I love you-
i’m so sorry. i wish i knew what to say. sending love.
Thanks for taking time to connect.
I think you’re concentrating too much on death, and allowing it to ruin the time you have left.
Remember Shakespeare: ‘cowards die many times before their deaths/ The valiant never taste of death but once’. Try to push it out of your mind. You’re spoiling the precious gift of life you have right now.
Good advice. I wish I could do it. I’ll keep trying.
I know the anxiety that I have and can’t imagine how great yours must be. From your blog it sounds like you are more sensitive and in touch with all of your feelings than some people. Maybe other bloggers aren’t comfortable sharing as much? Sending you good thoughts.
Perhaps you’re right. There aren’t all that many people that follow this blog anyway. Maybe my anxiety is worse than any of them have ever experienced. That’s a good thing. If it changes maybe they’ll come back to this someday and see I got thru it, just as they can.
Planet Bananas is right, thank you for sharing your experience so candidly. I wish I could “beam you up” to the Pueblo mountain, one place I felt so held in a secure embrace, as a tonic for your current anxiety. Please know that you are in my thoughts these days.
Thank you for the kind words.
The thing that strikes me is that x-rays (cat scans? MRIs?) are – quite literally – black and white. There is no questioning what you see in front of you. I think that is part of what is so scary. When you’re on your blog or with other people, perhaps it’s easier to try to make sense of things, or perhaps, focus on certain ways to cope. In a sterile doctor’s office, with a black and white image, there seems to be nothing but stark reality. I hate it. It’s why I make a terrible patient. It is understandable that, after your best efforts and seeing the PSA at the same level, you’d feel so anxious. Hang in there.
More and more I’m starting to believe it’s the jump in the PSA that’s behind the anxiety spike.
I see the oncologist again to day to go over what it really likely means and why exactly scans make sense at this exact point in time. I want to better understand what’s going on.
My bet is this suggests the PSA has metastasized to a new location and he wants to know where.