Catching up...

Well, it has been too long since my last post, as I was gently but firmly reminded recently. And what could I say but "no duh!?!"... and try and get on with what is going on in my head and heart as the treatment progresses.
Nothing. I could say nothing.  But I'll try.

The last couple of months have been hard ones and busy as well. My wife's father passed away and I had a really good relationship with him.  And there was a flurry of activity with that. And this week a close friend, and another cancer patient (albeit a different kind), passed away.  And that is hard.  But no more than anyone else has experienced.  It is, as Robinson Jeffers said, "...exactly conterminous with human existence".

For my part, the PSA count being down to a negligible number is a good thing, but I'm not done yet. The research data indicated that being on hormone treatments for a year was necessary, and I won't reach that point until the end of September.  So, I find myself being impatient, now that there is an end to the hormone deprivation in sight.  But that doesn't mean a return to my old self the next day. The doctor indicated it could be about 6 months before a new state of "normal" returns, and like it or not, I have not out-performed a single time estimate throughout this treatment regimen.  So, let's see... that means it could be March of 2011 before I feel something different physically and mentally.  Oh la!

The wearing thing about the hormone treatments is that I think I can still do things like I used to, but I can't.  For example, I think I can keep active (which I used to do, and which the doctors want me to do) but I need people to get me out to be active. While riding my bike, I think I feel fine and then I push a little and it takes me three days to recover.  I work in the backyard and I last an hour and need a rest. I feel like I have no initiative.  Sure I can get things done, but then I pay for it.  And there's more...

I went on short-term disability in March, mainly to stop the clock on losing my job... and I felt guilty at the time for doing that, as if I should be big enough to slam my way through a lay-off and cancer treatments. I don't feel guilty anymore, mainly because I realize that this - this getting well again - is now my job.  And so, because that short-term disability is ending, I am applying for long-term disability to get me through the end of the hormone treatments and into some recovery period.  And I need the time, both to recover and regain some sense of confidence in what I can do, what I have in front of me still to do. 

Getting through the application process for long-term disability was daunting.  The forms themselves are enough to make one run screaming into the night. I am not making this up.  And the corporate layers of obfuscation were almost impenetrable. Fortunately, my manager, the same one who laid me off, had a bad feeling about how things were proceeding and made some calls that helped.  But I still had to get the forms in... and I did.  But one day of intense activity - the same kind of activity I had every day in my job - resulted in a day of doing nothing, and I mean nothing, and a migraine.  Connection?  I think so.

And now I wait to see if I'm approved.  And I'm doing some research on an herb - black cohosh (actacea racemosa) - to take that helps with the hot flashes (which are getting worse). Not sure about it yet, but open to any way of improving things.