Back Home Again...Sheesh!

Today I go for my monthly visit to Lone Star Oncology, where I get an IV drip of Zometa (a bisphosphonate that will strengthen my bones, which are weakened both by the metastasizing prostate cancer, and the hormone therapy that I'm on).

I also talk with Dr. Shimkus about the results from my CT scan last month. (amazingly, just like with my bone scan a couple of months ago, there are *no visuals* provided with this scan -- even though the test itself consists of taking a picture! All that's provided is a very technical description of the my internal situation, which someone has painstakingly constructed from the picture itself. The visual scan (which would clearly show how serious a pattern of cancer is, and already exists in a file somewhere) would be an extra charge! My doctor in Germany is astounded at this practice and considers it unethical.)

Dr. Shimkus appears to be a bit surprised that I am going to change my hormone therapy by substituting the herbal compound Prostasol* for the Eligard shot that I am due to receive again this month. He gently tries to dissuade me from making the switch, but I am insistent (it will have fewer side effects -- specifically, less night sweating).

I ask a few more questions of him (such as, are there any therapies that I should be considering that I'm not on now?), and at some point after our meeting passes the 15-minute point, he appears to become a little impatient and tells me point blank: "You know, you are *always* going to be dealing with these bone metastases."

I'm slightly taken aback by this, but it isn't until later that I process what he was trying to convey to me: "hey, you've got inoperable cancer, there's nothing we can do about it -- get used to it!!"

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not in denial: I know I've got very serious advanced metastatic prostate cancer, and "statistically" my prognosis is poor. But I also know that there are *many* examples of people who have gone into remission from where I stand, and that there are also many fruitful lines of treatment that lie completely outside what the official "statistics" measure. So I refuse to be categorized by any kind of "get used to it!" diagnosis.

Even beyond this, the reason I get angry at attitudes like this is that there's simply no need for doctors to discourage their patients with this kind of framing. Take the example of Dr. Thaller: his stated *intention* to me is that "the tumor must vanish!" He of course gives me the necessary caveats that he can guarantee no such thing. But I walk away from that conversation with confidence, and a knowledge that my caregiver is fighting for me.

Conversely, when someone tells me to "get used to it", I'm discouraged, and it tells me only that my doctor wants to *manage* me. It honestly takes me four or five days to readjust my attitude after this encounter.

Sadly, I see this attitude everywhere in the States. Even the billboards for Proposition 15 (a Lance Armstrong-backed cancer research initiative) feature a bald cancer patient. That doesn't tell me that "we intend to cure cancer" -- that tells me that "all cancer patients look like death warmed over because we give them chemotherapy."

Don't vote for Proposition 15 -- it will just give more money to the same pharmaceutical and insurance giants that already poison people with chemotherapy and radiation.

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* I'll be taking the Dutch version of Prostasol -- the American version was found to be tainted with estrogen.