This was followed by a couple of weeks of rehab in a sub building to the hospital. An interesting side to this is that when they transfered me from the hospital to the rehab center they had to load me in an Ambulance and drive me accross the parking lot to the other building and then wheel me in there on a guerny. This is all insurance related. Apparently the insurance wouldn’t recognize that I was in a seperate rehab facility unless I was transferred by Ambulance…lol.  Anyway I spent two weeks there learning to walk again.  It couldn’t have been like losing a leg in Iraq and getting used to a new leg.

But it was similar in that I had to rehab the leg and this took some time.  First I learned how to get in and out of bed and how to swing the leg…gingerly…over the side of the bed. It was interesting learningto use a bed bottle to urinate. I required a few changes of bedding before I learned the finer points of using this piece of apparatus.  Then the wheel chair and then the walker.  I got pretty good at hurrying to the kitchen for meals. I almost needed a horn on the chair to warn folk of my coming down the hall.  Then there were the twice daily exercises.  One for the lower body and one for the upper body.  I thought the bath experience was interesting. The nurses aids drew this duty and some of them were very timid or embarrassed by my sitting in a shower unclothed.  At first I wasn’t able to reach my feet so they had to wash my feet and my back. They made me wash everything else.  Their inexperience was amusing  but I don’t blame them.  I’m no longer young and interesting….?  Finally I had my evaluations and release and came home to continue my rehab.  There were some specialists that came by for about 6 weeks. Twice a week to give me special exercises.  Again both upper and lower body exercises and walking. One of them went for walks with me to evaluate my progress.  I no longer have them  but I really appreciate all the help and all the people that helped me get back on my feet and regain my mobility.  I’m back to walking a mile 2 or 3 times a week.  This summer has been too hot to walk outside so I have been driving to a mall to walk in air-conditioned comfort.  This is sometimes hard because I still have some discomfort in the upper leg and some numbness in the area of the incision but I’d have to say that all that is improving.  I can get in and out of the car with little discomfort and I have a problem keeping from stopping by the ice cream store on the way home…lol. Any questions or comments will be appreciated. Jack Settles.

Next subject will be the diabetis and all of its ups and downs….Soon. Jack.

Subject: a $100 gift for you

Dear Friend

My friend and colleague Bob Bly is one of the most experienced – and successful – copywriters I know.

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P.S. You will also get a free subscription to Bob Bly’s monthly e-zine, The Direct Response Letter.

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1. Normally piercing a testicle with a needle would be to take a sample of tissue for a cancer test. Talk to your Urologist. Chances are that he will get in touch with you or see you on your next appointment.

2. Shrinking your testicles would normally be done only to reduce your production of Testosterone. This is done to reduce the testosterone being supplied to the Prostate. Too much testosterone can cause prostate cancer to grow more quickly. Eleminating the production of testosterone will not only shrink the testicles down to practically nothing but will help shrink the prostate back to a more normal size and stop the cancer cells from growing. This will allow the cancer Doctor to insert the radioactive seeds into the prostate to kill the cancer all together.

3. The Urologist can give you a series of shots to shrink your prostate. This will also shrink your testicles a great deal. This is necessary to slow down or stop the production of testosterone which, in turn will shrink the prostate.

4. You ask about shots to shrink your prostate. See the answers above.

5. If you want testosterone shots to increase your production of testosterone you will have to discuss your concerns with your primary care doctor. This is a very important issue and must be handled by a real doctor. They have the necessary information to help you with this problem.

6. Inserting needles in the testicles was answered above.

7. A biopsy needle is a special hollow needle to collect samples of whatever organ is suspect of causing you a problem.

8. Elimination of your testosterone will cause the things I have talked about above but it will also cause you to have hot flashes and to think your going to melt. Thats what it did to me. That has gone away and my testicles are growing back to their origional size and the hot flashes are  nearly gone. I don’t know yet how long it will take for me to regain my (libedo) but I anxiously await the future. I no longer have to fight to urinate and the heat in the bladder and uretha are nearly gone. The radioactive seeds are still active but have cooled off and are no longer causing swelling in the prostate. I get an occational bout with heat and pressure but not much any more. I’ll keep you all updated with the latest. Jack Settles.

Part 2 due out soon.

When I went in for my next appointment the Urologist unceremoniously informed me that I had Cancer. Then after some silence on my part he informed me that he was starting me on a regimen of shots that would “do the job”, that’s when I started to breathe again, then he set me up to see a cancer doctor. The Urologist started me on the chemical shots right then. They gave me a shot of something called “Trelstar” It’s a combination of three drugs designed to shrink my testicles and eliminate my testosterone. He explained what that meant. It will dry up your testicles and shrink your prostate. The goal was to eliminate my testosterone. He didn’t tell me very much about what that meant…It changes you from male to female in some ways. You get Hot Flashes and begin to realize what that means to women. I began to think I was going to melt. I had a shot in each hip one side each month for 3 months and then they changed me to one every 3 months. As an aside, The Nurse who gave me the first shot put it in my right hip and got it too close to my sciatic nerve, even pierced the nerve close to where it comes out of the lower spine. Consequently I ended up with a lot of pain in that hip and leg for several months. Only recently has that problem eased up. If you experience the opportunity please tell the nurse to watch where she puts that needle. Stopping the production of testosterone stops the growth of the cancer cells which is a very slow process anyway. I suspect that I’ve been working on this problem for several years before it was discovered. My experience with E. D. goes back several years.

In the mean time I had my first appointment with the Cancer Doctor and he explained what he was going to do to me….seems like they don’t ask they tell. He set me up for a chin to hip scan of a sort of prone xray. They have that in the building next door to his office. That was quite extensive and because I have a Grandson who is a radiologist I ask for and got a copy of the scan on a dvd. Then the Doctor scheduled me for radiation treatments on a beam machine. It’s like one of those tunnel machines they lay you down and shove you in. The beam only goes where they tell it to. In my case they gave me 6 weeks of treatments each morning at 7. So I went in each morning at 7 and got a 15 minute treatment with the beam. They went from the lower abdomen to the bottom of the prostate. The Doctor explained that they wanted to make sure I didn’t have any leakage of the cancer into the surrounding tissue. I thought thatwas nice of him to want that, I certainly did. They don’t treat the whole area at once they only do a (small slice) at a time.

About a quarter of an inch or a little less. So after 30 treatments they have a complete picture. Then I went in for another scan but only of the affected area this time. I just mailed off a copy of that one to my Grandson today. So I had my last shot of the Trelstar stuff, which by the way they never did call that chemo therapy and I never lost any hair. I personally called it chemo but that’s just me. Then the Cancer Doctor scheduled me for a “seed implant” operation for September. That’s when the Urologist and the Cancer Doc get together with me as the object of their affection. I was only one of a whole day of surgery they had scheduled. The “seed implant” is a special insertion of radio active titanium seeds into the prostate. The Urologist uses a camera and inserts it in the urethra to make sure that the Doctor is putting the seeds in the right area. They insert the implant needle into the body between the scrotum and the renal cavity. I can’t locate any scars. Of course I can’t see that area very well. When I went in for the treatment I was put in a dressing room and put in one of those dresses, without a back, and laid out on a gurney. My Daughter, who had flown up from New Orleans to be with me during this time, was there and I’ll ask her to input her experience into this blog as well. Any how a doc came in the room and since the nurse had fitted me with an input apparatus in an artery in my arm the doc inserted a needle in the thing and I woke up in a recovery room. Pretty neat if you ask me. Then I began recovery. That was in early September and it’s now mid November and I’m still getting over the effects of the radioactivity. I’ve had a great deal of heat. It’s like I have my own little microwave down there. It makes the urine hot and it feels like it’s burning when it comes out. Since the prostate is right next door to the renal cavity there is always a problem with feeling like you need to have a bowel movement every time you need to pass urine which is still every hour or so. The Urologist gave me some samples of “Detrol-LA” which enlarges the bladder and helps it to hold more so you don’t have to go as often. So instead of getting up to go every hour I get to sleep a couple of hours between getting up to go. The Cancer Doctor said that the radioactivity should decrease pretty quick. He said the half life of the seeds was only about 2 weeks. The seeds are so small that they only effect tissue within a fraction of an inch, so they put in a lot of them. Maybe 60 or so and they have to put them in both sides of the prostate. (Just in case). The one thing they did tell me about was that the prostate would swell up. The Urologist told me that it would swell up a lot. That was an understatement. It really squeezes the urethra tube down to where you need all the concentration you can muster to be able to go. The Nurse at the urologists office checked my bladder to see if I was emptying the bladder completely and it seems like I am able to do that ok. The swelling of the prostate in the area of the anal cavity is probably why I feel that I need to have a bowel movement because it feels like there is something in there to expel. That has mixed results. When you strain to do that it causes pressure on the bladder and that makes the urine come out a little quicker. So it all comes out in the end.

I have an appointment with the Urologist in early December to see how the Detrol LA is working and to get me started on the recovery of my “Libido”. The Testosterone is recoverable, they say, and everything else should return to normal…over time. I’m 80 now so I don’t want to wait a very long time. I’m ready for a full and complete recovery now. The Urologist gave me a 100% chance of recovery and the Cancer Doctor said 90%. He wants to keep an edge.

Going back over the year, it’s been quite an experience and I doubt if it’s over or will be any time soon. I’ll have to go back for scans and they want to make sure I have enough radioactivity to do the complete job. It’s nice that there are ways to kill something like Prostate Cancer without having to remove the Prostate all together. The resident Doctor in the Beam Radiation Center told me that when they remove the prostate it shortens the urethra and that they must make up for about 2 inches of the tube so to do that they pull up the penis and the urethra that remains to hook it up to the bladder. So If you’d rather not lose a couple of inches off your penis you might want to opt for the things I’ve gone through. It might be best in the “long run”.

I had my appointment with Dr. Ortiz, the Urologist in late December and got a Christmas present. He says I’m doing “GREAT” and I don’t have to come back for 6 months.  I’m still on all the medications that are ment to return all my systems to normal. We’ll see how that works out. I’ll have a couple of visits to the cancer Dr.

He want’s to do another scan to see how the prostate is progressing and to see if I need any more radiation and any more seeds implanted. I hope not. I’ll keep updating this blog as time passes. If you’d like to be notified when a new post has been added,  please add a comment and include your email and your first name and I’ll send you a notice to stop by the blog for an update. My year with prostate cancer may stretch out for awhile and if any thing earth shaking comes up, I’m sure you’ll want to know about it. I’m getting mail from the “HIS” , Health Institute about all source of new and very old ways to cure cancer and how to prevent it before it comes along to grab you. That will be anoter Blog.  Thanks for dropping by. Jack Settles.