Just A Bit Of Medical Treatment News

I just thought I should let you know in a brief note what is going on with me medically right now since I have not posted too much on here recently.

Only a few weeks ago, the Hospital set up the beginning of my forty time radiation treatments that I am supposed to experience to deal with my cancer condition. The real hope that I have is that I will have very positive results after this radiation program is finished. It would help solve the medical issue I have now.  To let you know, I have just had a few sessions and will talk about it later in another article in more detail.

I have to admit that I was not exactly certain what was going to happen. The reality, I believed, was that I had a one hour period set aside for each of my sessions. However, my actual program each time only would take much fewer minutes. Naturally, I assumed that it took lots of time to set me up in front of the radiation machinery and to end each test. It did not.  I thought I also had to undress and dress up again before I could leave the radiation room.  Again no, since I could stay in my clothes after all.   The reality was that my actual session was only about 15 minutes. 

It did not surprise me that I have had to have something to drink and perhaps eat to recover from other types of medical events recently. I expected, given what happened previously, that I would probably be quite nervous in each session. Just remember my condition after I went to the hospital the first time to start this program as I wrote previously.  Again, the reality was different.  I was not very much nervous after experiencing the first session.  However, I still do go for a nice treat after the session ends.

Enough about this right now. I will let you know what happens after my initial bunch of sessions as best that I can. Depending what happens, I will keep you up-to-date also on the other visits I make if something interesting happens.

80’s Wedding

No, I am not going to be writing about something that happened in the 1980s.  Rather, I am talking about the big night for my daughter, Melissa, and her husband, Bill, who joined together a little while ago.  

My wife, Marsha, and I want to let everyone know how well everything was set up and organized for this special night.  The event that was created was based on the kind of wedding that would take place during that earlier time period.  It was just such a perfect night.  

What is most fascinating is that it was set up and organized by Melissa and Bill.  It did take a lot of time to organize it properly.  They worked so hard at making sure that everything was done properly so that the people who attended would have a good night celebrating their future.  I know that they visited so many possible suppliers to find the best ones.  Obviously, it took them time to set up also the events that were to take place that evening as well with their chosen groups and to make sure that everything would carry out properly.  

We worked with Melissa and Bill to develop an evening that we hoped everyone would enjoy.  However, they were the ones who went out and made the effort to work very hard to find the right people to provide all the services required in an excellent fashion.  Their expectation was that everything would be provided in as best a manner as possible.  When they made decisions, they came to us for approvals which we easily gave them because what they had done made so much sense.

To be direct, they were unbelievably amazing in what they accomplished.  From start to finish, the timetable in our meeting room was followed perfectly.  No wasted time at all.  The service providers carried out their functions in about as excellent a manner as was possible.  The dinner was just so excellent given the food to eat, including the extras as seconds of my choice of the best dishes that I was able to eat.  This is what Cortina Gourmet Market does.  Unlike many meals that I have eaten out, the food actually was quite hot when I ate it!  As for pics, Simon Wyn, the photographer, was so excellent in what he did.  He even sat near us during dinner.

The people who had to play an entertainment function also did so exactly as was necessary to keep the guests happy.  Especially I remember the fellow, who acted like Bernie the “dead man” in a movie, who unbelievably had “passed away” and remained completely unmoving until he was carried out of the meeting room.  

Given my relationship with Melissa, I was the “Father of the Bride.”  

Believe it or not, that put on a tremendous amount of pressure on me during wedding night.  And even in the weeks before.  I was the one who walked her down the aisle to the spot where she and Bill officially joined up together.   It was my task as a parent of the bride to make sure that they were united that evening. 

It was really not an easy task to do.  I remember when we were the only two people outside waiting for the official music to start so that we could walk down the aisle together.  We both talked very quickly with each other saying all kinds of wonderful things while we were there.  A few hugs and big smiles on both of our faces accompanied at the same time by lots of tears in our eyes.  It was the combination of her great future to come along with remembering our wonderful relationship in the past.

Just as an aside, it was a very important event for our family.   Without making a big deal about it, I am sure that you know, dear reader, my medical condition right now.  That was something that was learned just a few months before the wedding ceremony.  Regretfully, it was something that we had to deal with while at the same time something wonderful was going to take place.  I am so pleased to say that all we considered was how this is going to be a great night for Melissa and Bill! 

Melissa and Bill really should set up a business to run this kind of an event.  They did such a nice job for all of us who came out.  The whole evening when this event ran was beautifully handled.  It was not a gigantic project with lots of people but rather one whereby the most attached family members and friends were invited to attend.  It was interesting to see how many people actually came to the site about an hour before the event started.  To be honest, the room was almost completely filled up with guests about thirty minutes before the ceremony was officially to start.

I am not going to go into a long discussion about the ceremony that took place between Melissa and Bill.  The ceremony was so touching.   As for me, everything was so exciting to watch.  I was so involved in seeing and hearing what was going on!  Everything was right to the point and well done.  Each of them made a wonderful presentation of the vows which they read to each other.  If you want to see what they said, please go here:  Bill & Melissa's Wedding Vows  

There is a lot more that I could tell you about the evening but I do not think it is necessary for me to do so.  All that I want to say is that this was a fantastic evening for everyone who attended the event.  Most importantly, I was so happy about what happened to Melissa and Bill in front of all of these people.  I was the father of the bride and so pleased to be there with my wife and son.

It Has Officially Started

As you will read in this article, it hit me a lot harder than I thought possible. After all, I am a tough guy and always am pretty sure of the consequences of what I thought might happen to me. Based on what I knew, it hardly seemed like a difficult situation that would put me in a serious state.

Yet, I broke down!

As I am sure that you know already, as I have written on here before, I just learned recently that I have prostate cancer. Fortunately, it did not seem very serious based on what I was told by my usual specialist doctor, a urologist, whom I visit regularly who is experienced in this area. This was told to me also by the cancer specialist whom I had just met at the hospital in Windsor, a radiation oncologist. I also had just visited with my family doctor around this time who seemed quite positive about the state that I was in.

Oh sure, I was put on a system by my urologist doctor in which I would receive a vaccine needle injection once every three months for 2 to 3 years. Then, my new cancer specialist was to put me on a system of receiving radiation treatments for about forty days shortly ie 1 treatment per day for 5 days per week for 8 weeks. Hardly a big deal. I might suffer a little bit of hardship like diarrhea or tiredness from the radiation but not very much otherwise. No need to worry a lot at all.

By a matter of coincidence, appointments had been set up which, on the first day, was one with my family doctor while the one on the next day was set up in the hospital to have some tests done before my major program there was to start.

My family doctor appointment was really one that had been scheduled a long time before and was my usual medical appointment that was set up to look at my medical condition yearly. We spent a fair bit of time talking about the cancer situation I was in. She was very positive about my state of health and about what was to take place thereafter in a very short period of time. Her records seemed quite positive now about my condition.

As an example, several months ago a test was taken on my system and it showed that my PSA results had literally skyrocketed upwards.

“PSA, which stands for Prostate-Specific Aantigen, is a protein produced by the prostate gland. It is present in the blood of all men at low levels, but PSA levels often rise, sometimes dramatically, in the presence of prostate cancer.” (Healthfully)

She told me that it had risen from a very low amount to over “50.” That amount was unbelievably high. Here is what it should have been:

“For men over 70, healthy PSA levels will usually range between .4 and 17.8 ng/mL, with an average of 8.9.”

We spent a good bit of time talking about it and I have to admit that, after the session, I was in pretty good spirits. Naturally this would happen since she showed me a report that was undertaken after one of the tests that I did that showed that my number now was about .7! Quite a drop in a very short time.

Let me jump forward now to my big session at the Hospital. I had seen my cancer specialist there before. However, this time to me really was the first time that I was going to be “officially” looked after there. Sure, I expected to be there for quite a number of days for treatment but I did not feel all that nervous or upset about starting. Or so it seemed to me.

Of course, there was a bit of a problem starting off. I found out that I was going to have this issue every time I was going to have treatment there. I had to take Phillips Milk of Magnesia every night before and then a treatment drink of 500 ml of water before I left home as part of the process of being treated. Not only toilet time but who the heck wanted to be so full of water that one needed to hold for a longer period of time than normal.

I met first with a wonderful lady there whose job it was to talk with new patients and their family members and let them know about what was going to happen. More importantly, that person had the responsibility to answer every question that she was asked by the patient and other family members to make everyone feel a lot better before the medical process would start. She was given a considerable number of questions to answer by my wife and my son who were with me and by me. She did a great job of answering to make us all feel a lot better.

Then, my family members were asked to leave our meeting room and some of my tests were to start immediately thereafter in a different location to where I had to go. It all took about twenty-five minutes with a whole bunch of tests involving all of the equipment that I will ultimately be using as part of my forty days of medical treatment. The rooms were huge there as was all of the equipment under which I would be located.

It was a bit painful given my medical shape but not all that hurtful considering how much time we were there and what had to be undertaken to make sure future testing would work out properly. I learned that the equipment usage would really only take a few minutes per day so it should all work out quite well even if there was a little bit of pain.

I lay down on the "bed" feature of one of these big machines. It did not have a nice, soft mattress but rather a rather hard metal covering on which I lay down. After being in that position for so long, it took a bit of effort for me to sit up again. Fortunately the medical people there helped me do that.

Then my shock happened. All ready for me to leave since everything was finished, right. Regretfully, I could not do it. I completely and totally broke down mentally! My mind just stopped working.

I do not understand why it happened but it did. I did not feel this way at all before I attended at the hospital and especially before I started taking these tests. I seemed to be quite okay, at least to myself. I now completely lost control of myself and became extremely emotional after this testing was finished.

I was lucky that my medical person was there to help. She and I talked together for about fifteen to twenty minutes as I was choking up and talking about all of the horrific experiences that I experienced especially over the last five years or so. I could not believe that I was now experiencing my past so strongly even though my medical people had told me that I was probably in pretty good shape now.

I talked about almost dying with that virtually unknown medical disease that I experienced between Christmas and New Year’s day several years before. I talked to her about my fears about dying now when I wanted to be alive to help my family members for as long as I could. It all hit me so strongly even though everything seemed now so positive for me.

All that I can tell you is that this wonderful medical person who was there made me feel so much better once I spilled out what was troubling me so much. She was so good in listening to me and then talking with me to help me find an answer. My actions were so unbelievable in desperation that her job must have been designed as well to meet the horrific experience that I had now and am sure many other hospital patients suffered at the same time. She did magnificently in making me feel so much better very quickly.

I really do not want to talk much more in this article about what happened because it is not necessary. I am better now and so happy that I met my new friend at the Hospital. Heck, she escorted me back to find my family in the waiting area and made sure that I was given a nice cup of tea so that I felt better before we got in our car and left for home.

Now you, dear reader, have it all. End of article!

Getting Closer

Finally, here comes another one of my Blogs. Oh sure, I am not producing them as often as I did before but I am sure that you, dear reader, understand the reason for that.

Just in case some of you are not aware or have just joined my site, I have been recently diagnosed of having prostate cancer. I seem to be relatively fortunate at this stage because it does not seem to have spread very far. I will be going through a very substantial radiation treatment system starting in the next little while which I hope will knock out a good part of the health difficulties I have now. It is a forty day session in which I go in every day Monday to Friday to receive treatment.

Apparently, I go in early September to have some testing undertaken for the treatments that I will be receiving. I am not really sure what will happen but will probably write about it after it is completed. I do want people to know what is being done by our medical system to help people who have picked up diseases like mine.

However, let me talk about lots of other things that are going on around here as I did in the past. Here are some of the issues that I have looked at before but, because of my situation, I have not written about until now.

WINDSOR COUNCIL

I have nothing in particular to write about with respect to the political matters involving the City Council in Windsor. As you know, dear reader, I used to write a lot. Unfortunately, I have not seen very much about what is going on in political matters in the City.

What interested me after the municipal election in October 2018 is the fact that four new people were elected as Councillors: Fabio Costante, Gary Kaschak, Kieran McKenzie and Jim Morrison.

I have seen a number of stories involving both Fabio and Kieran. That does not surprise me at all because I believe that both of them are very politically involved and could use their position in Windsor as a forerunner of them running for more a senior position in the future. I have to admit though that none of the stories that I have read about their involvement, and can remember today, are all that significant as far as I am concerned.

As far as the other gentlemen, I do not know much about them at all. I know very little about Gary Kaschak. Apparently, he ran a pretty good campaign and that is what made him the winner. However, I cannot recall anything about him in the media these days. I did a very quick search about him in both Google and the Windsor Star website and found almost nothing about his involvement as Councillor so far.

It seems the same for Jim Morrison. I have done some research on him but found very little in which he was named for what he did. I must admit that his election platform https://www.voteforjim.ca/platform seemed interesting but I have not seen much in which he has been publicized to date.

I did see this story about his actions as one example:

“A Windsor councillor is imploring the city to halt any future destruction of the South Cameron Woodlot after residents amassed thousands of signatures on an online petition.

Ward 10 councillor Jim Morrison presented the petition to council on Monday night. It features nearly 10,000 signatures collected in the past few weeks.” (CTV Windsor, March 27, 2019)

Let’s see what happens as Year #2 of their election approaches.

https://beta.windsorstar.com

It seems that Windsor Star is planning to do something different now. Exactly what, I do not have the faintest idea. By chance, I found the above beta website of theirs which may be the new way that their stories are going to be produced. Who knows, it may also be the structure of a new website where they are going to charge people a subscription fee for joining so they can see the stories of this newspaper.

In doing a bit of research, I found this website https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI_v500M23s that you might be interested in looking at since it deals with new media that seems to be coming out. Sure it was done five years ago but we can see how things were to change.

What is interesting is the comment that, regardless of how the news media will operate in future, there is always the need for the media to exist to provide information to the public. Just take a listen at around the 11:45 mark of the video.

OUR NEW PRIME MINISTER

Making the assumption that not only will Sandra Pupatello be selected as candidate for the Liberals for the Windsor West seat in the upcoming election but also will beat the NDP MP, Brian Masse who has been elected there so many times, that should make it interesting to see what happens in federal politics in the future.

Let me just guess what I think could happen.

I expect that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be re-elected in the next election and that Ms. Pupatello will become a very significant Cabinet Minister after the election after she wins her campaign. After all, she did quite well when she was in Ontario as a Cabinet Minister and almost became the Premier here.

It will take some time I am sure but I expect the Prime Minister will keep on making mistakes and that, eventually, he will decide that he had better “retire” from office before something might happen to him. If that does happen, I would expect that Ms. Pupatello would become one of the Liberal candidates who would run to take over his position. It would be exactly what she tried to do in Ontario!

Now I have no idea how well she would do. Obviously, it would be best if nothing happened for several years so that her reputation could be built up rather dramatically in her cabinet position. That would make it appear as if she had all of the requirements necessary to be the head of the Party once the PM left but, more importantly, the head of the Government in Canada.

Can you imagine though if she won! The Head of the Government would be one of the MPs in the Windsor, Ontario area. That would certainly build our future in a number of areas including our business and employment situation which is not all that good these days.

I certainly do not want to play a significant role in her election campaign and afterwards. However, whoever fills that position might want to read what I just wrote above and start planning what is going to happen to her after the election assuming that she has won. I expect that she would play a very important role in this country that could well lead her to the very senior position as our new Prime Minister.

Just Another Blog

I thought that I would write a little bit more about what is going on with me these days. Please do not ask me to explain any of this. It just seems so unusual about what happened but which turned out so remarkably. Let me share some of these incidents with you.

These days, I am not really under a lot of mental pressure or worries because nothing is going to happen for a few more weeks. My feelings are not all that serious right now. Nevertheless, there will always be in my mind something that I have to deal with until I visit with the medical people again and find out when my radiation process starts. Hopefully I can get rid of any cancer difficulties that my body now has after forty days of radiation treatments.

Forty days! It seemed so bizarre to me about the number of days of treatments I have to receive. Why does it have to be so many of them? Why do I just not get a few big radiation treatments and everything will be finished early? I must admit that I am going to have to ask my doctor about that when we meet again. I did not ask him about it when we first met because I never thought about it at the time.

Each session is supposed to be about an hour a day because that is what the length of my appointment will be. In reality, he told me that, if everything is fine in each of the sessions, the real amount of time is about twenty to thirty minutes. It should take about a few minutes to undress to go into whatever is required for the radiation treatment and then to dress up again. The treatment itself only lasts about a minute or two but would take also a few minutes to make sure that I am in the right position before it is started.

As you can tell, because I only get five treatments each week, it takes eight weeks or about two months for all of my treatments to be completed. The problem with this was a very small matter yet one that was quite serious from a practical perspective:

How difficult was it going to be to find a place to park?

The number of hospital parking spaces around this area is relatively small. When I first came there to meet my doctor, there were no spaces available and I had to walk a considerable number of blocks away from the hospital because there were so many cars taking up parking spots on the street. It took about 15 minutes or so in each direction. It was very hot out this day so it was a sweaty walk.  I was not too pleased thinking about all of this especially considering that the temperatures might be a lot colder in the fall when I was going to be taking my hospital treatments.

However, dear reader, as you will see I was blessed. I remembered that a friend of mine lived in the area, very close to the hospital itself. Given the concern that I now had, I contacted him to ask if I could park in his driveway when I attended each of the hospital visits. Graciously, he said “yes” and said that he would organize whatever I needed! Now that was fantastic.

Let me tell you about another story that just happened.

I am dealing now with a new company that will be looking after some matters for my family. I had visited with a number of potential companies with whom my wife and I could deal. Naturally, when we first started looking for such a company, we were not in any big hurry. After all, I had not received any negative news about my health.

Well, that all changed. Fortunately, my wife and I had already decided whom we wished to retain. Accordingly, we were able to go to that company and tell them that they were now going to act for us. And also, we had to tell them now about my new medical situation.

Here again is what remarkably happened. It is absolutely amazing to say the least. I met with one of the gentlemen at the company who was going to be my representative there before I received my bad health news. I now had to make him aware of my situation about which I was so concerned. Given my situation, I was not sure if he really would want to act for me anymore.

I did not know a lot about his background and decided to take a look at what he was doing. Obviously, he handled a number of matters outside of the work that he did at the place that we retained. Here though was one that I thought was unbelievable considering the medical news that I had just received. He is involved with people who are dealing with cancer the way I am! 

I cannot explain how this happened nor am I even going to try and do so. It happened to me so positively at one of the most difficult times in my life. I am just so grateful once again. When we met again, I told him about my condition and he was not concerned at all about acting for us.

Lots of other things are going to be happening over the next little while. I am going to have to learn how to deal with them. I will try and do the best I can.

What the heck, I had better get back to writing my Blog news once again and get my life back in order.

My Good and Bad News

I do need to tell you, dear reader, what happened Wednesday at my visit with the specialist at the Cancer Center here in Windsor. This was the place where I was supposed to go to learn more information about what treatments were needed based on the recent diagnosis.  

My meeting was scheduled to start at about 1 PM. I was told that it was going to take place over at least a three hour time period. The difficult part of it was that I had to drink 4 big glasses of water just before the meeting started since I would have to do some further tests.  I was right, I started at about 12:15 PM to drink the water, completed the tests and then waited to meet my oncologist. 

The oncologist told me directly that I was suffering from prostate cancer and it is one that is more aggressive (Gleason Score of 8) than other kinds.  While that confirmed what I really believed before, I was still upset at what he told me. I did not expect it to be that bad. I just assumed that it really was a “pre-cancerous” situation I was going through and I just had to get some minor procedures done so I would not get the disease. The reality was, I was wrong. 

To be direct, I did ask him about how serious my situation was. I had heard that if I had a really serious case of cancer, my life expectancy might only be a couple of years more.  He was pretty direct with his answer. He thought that my situation was a good one. Nevertheless, there could be problems at the end of this treatment and of course, he could not guarantee what would happen but he felt optimistic. Based on the hormone therapy treatment I had already started from my specialist, which reduces the amount of testosterone in my body, the likelihood of me being successful is approximately 75%.

I was very impressed with him and his ability to make me feel relaxed especially during this difficult time. We spent a good amount of time talking about what I was going through respecting my health issues. In addition, he answered a number of questions that I had about the process that I would be going through and I never felt rushed. I appreciated his genuine care and concern. I also really liked the nurses and just overall staff and volunteers. Everyone was so friendly and being in this atmosphere made the situation less fearful. 

I have to go through 40 rounds of radiation, 5 days a week for about 8 weeks. There will be some testing in September done prior to treatment.  It shouldn't be a long time at each visit.  Although a visit is scheduled for an hour, it should probably take about 20 minutes or so. If there are complications, it could take longer. He went through how radiation worked and how my individual treatment will focus on getting rid of the bad cells, so this information was very useful.  Every person is different, so I will just see how my body reacts. 

Now you know what my situation is and what I will be going through for the next several months. I intend to maintain a very positive view of what will happen and what my result will be. 

And don’t worry. You will hear about it too!

PS. The walk to and from the hospital from where we parked this time was a lengthy one. Thankfully the weather was warm, but it was still exhausting due to the heat. There wasn't a single spot available in the lot or around the area. Since we will be going 5 days a week, I am wondering if any of my friends who do live by the hospital (near Kildare Ave) would allow us to  park at their home for approximately half an hour to an hour per day? It may be various times or a specific schedule for the course of my treatments. These issues are still unknown until my next appointment.  If so, please contact me on Facebook messenger or you can contact my daughter, Melissa, on Facebook.