I’ve said this before – it’s harder to deal with the day to day of living with someone with a very serious disease than it is to deal with a crisis.   We’ve had more than our share of crises, and we’ve also had lengthy experience of dealing with daily or regular out patient treatments.   Now it’s the ups and downs of side effects, and also the disease manifestations.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that we were astonished at the huge increase in PSA from 76 or thereabouts to 234 in a very short period.   We were both convinced that this must be an anomaly, perhaps due to different assays, different labs, etc.   Well, since Peter’s PSA is now in the 400s, that clearly wasn’t the case.   We did lots of investigating, but then the ER and radiation treatments of a couple of weeks ago put that to the side.   Permanently, as it happens.   The point?   Take everything seriously.  Maybe something will turn out to be nothing much; but maybe not.

So now it’s another stage.    I’m sure everyone knows that when one is dealing with a voracious cancer, any aches and pains, queasy feelings, and the like, give rise to the thought that maybe it’s another problem.   We now know that the various pains Peter had in his flank area on two occasions were precursors to serious spinal issues.   So now we’re faced with another possible set of pain and queasiness issues – close monitoring is all we can do unless it continues.    I’ll post updates on this, whether it continues or ends.

We do know however that the really bad sore throat, now moving down the esophagus, is definitely a side effect from the radiation.  It’s day 10 since the final treatment, and the radiation oncology doc said it would be 10-14 days before side effects lessened or ended, so we’re hoping that Peter will feel better from that soon.  It’s definitely improving, but more on a two steps forward, one step back basis.

It’s also amazing to me that we adjust as we go forward.   There was a time not very long ago when Peter went for daily walks, ate lightly but somewhat normally, but now it’s tiny walks, calorie-laden liquids only, and large amounts of rest and sleep.  This is today’s reality – we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Today is our wedding anniversary – our present to each other is that we’re here, together, still.    That’s all we want and need.