what's the quality of life during metastatic prostate cancer
People are always telling me that once I get thru some treatments for my prostate cancer that I should still have fairly good quality of life. Quality of life is relative and not the same for everyone. The journey to the point where one may realize any kind of quality is a long one. It just doesn't happen over night.
Before I was diagnosed with pc and went thru radiation, hormone therapy, other maintenance with drugs,a few other procedures and now chemo, I did just about everything myself. I grew up learning not to depend on anyone else to do repairs around the house, cars or whatever because of the shotty workmanship which just ended up costing me more in the long run. I learned to do it all by watching others and then applying it to my own needs and after a while, never needed a professional to fix anything. There wasn't a thing that I couldn't do.
I went to music college and got me a degree and in the process learned how to play all of the musical instruments. This of course helped me learn to do other aspects in life because I was a quick learner. I focused on quality, not mediocrity and became a pro in several fields; musician and re-modeler just to name a few. So as you can see,I was self sufficient and kept quite busy for most of my life.
It wasn't too long ago that I couldn't play a musical instrument anymore as this was probably during the time when the disease was growing and affecting other parts of my body. I needed something else to occupy my retired time and decided to try art. I never had any need or interest in painting before and felt that it wasn't my bag, music was. But once I tried it, found out that I wasn't half bad and gave it everything I had and focused on it until I became very good at it. I had been struggling, in quite a bit of pain and painting was a way to take my mind off my problems.
It wasn't too long after that I was diagnosed with stage 3 metastatic prostate cancer and ended up in the hospital. I was in so much pain that my body had locked itself into a certain position in trying to relieve some of the pain. I lost 50 pounds in just 6 weeks and totally lost my appetite. Later radiation helped ease the pain and helped me get out of the locked position I was stuck in for over a month. Needless to say, I could no longer walk and had to re-learn. It took me about 5 weeks to learn to walk. It was painful, but managed to get thru it. It took me sometime to develop a taste for food. It was French toast and bacon that triggered my taste buds and ended up having cravings for sausage, pancakes and hot dogs. I haven't eaten a hot dog in 5 years, even longer for bacon and sausages.
I was discharged and went home and kept up with building myself up. I was on an up-swing period and spent a lot of time painting and trying to enjoy my backyard feeding the birds and squirrels during the summer and fall months. Unfortunately, when the winter months came along, the down swing kicked in.
I had to stay away from groups of people in fear of catching any illness someone may have as this could end up in a very bad situation for me. My immune system had dropped and fighting off any kind of a virus wasn't to be. I missed out on grand-kids birthdays, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I was stuck at home. No quality of life here that's for sure. Walking was becoming difficult and getting to my studio which was down a flight of stairs was impossible. The nodes were pressing on the nerves giving me unbelievable right femur pain which would easily spike up to a 10/10. I knew that if I was going down to my studio, coming back up wasn't happening.
It wasn't long after that, that I was urinating blood and ended back in the hospital. Everything from my waste down had swollen and the insertion of a larger catheter wasn't going to happen without some sort of procedure. This was done the following day by my urologist and for the meantime a smaller catheter had to be inserted to get rid of the urine that was backing up in my bladder. I was already having debilitating pain in my lower back and now spreading to my bladder. There was a mass both on my prostate and bladder that had to be removed before feeling some relief.
After this was done and a larger catheter inserted, I would spend the next week getting irrigated for the removal of whatever mass was left inside. There was a lot of clotted blood which was removed daily. In the meantime there wasn't much relief in pain.
Here I am into mid June and am back to 100mcg/hr Fentanyl Pain Patches and taking a pain killer called Delauded....more opiate drugs. I don't know whether I'm coming or going these days and seem to be in a daze for the most part. I started chemo last week and was sick for the first 3 days. Once again I lost my taste buds and started losing a lot of weight. I turned back to eating crispy bacon to see if it would trigger my taste buds and it did.
I got me a wheel chair to move around in but still need to use crutches to go up and down a few steps to get to my vehicle. I can't walk more than a few yards at a time because the pain spikes in my right femur to a 10/10. Thus far my life is sitting around with my legs elevated waiting for the water pills to help get rid of the swelling in my lower extremities thru the use of the catheter. There seems to be some relief from the swelling and pain per Foley bag and maybe with a little more luck and time, things will get a little better. As for quality of life? That remains to be seen!
Before I was diagnosed with pc and went thru radiation, hormone therapy, other maintenance with drugs,a few other procedures and now chemo, I did just about everything myself. I grew up learning not to depend on anyone else to do repairs around the house, cars or whatever because of the shotty workmanship which just ended up costing me more in the long run. I learned to do it all by watching others and then applying it to my own needs and after a while, never needed a professional to fix anything. There wasn't a thing that I couldn't do.
I went to music college and got me a degree and in the process learned how to play all of the musical instruments. This of course helped me learn to do other aspects in life because I was a quick learner. I focused on quality, not mediocrity and became a pro in several fields; musician and re-modeler just to name a few. So as you can see,I was self sufficient and kept quite busy for most of my life.
It wasn't too long ago that I couldn't play a musical instrument anymore as this was probably during the time when the disease was growing and affecting other parts of my body. I needed something else to occupy my retired time and decided to try art. I never had any need or interest in painting before and felt that it wasn't my bag, music was. But once I tried it, found out that I wasn't half bad and gave it everything I had and focused on it until I became very good at it. I had been struggling, in quite a bit of pain and painting was a way to take my mind off my problems.
It wasn't too long after that I was diagnosed with stage 3 metastatic prostate cancer and ended up in the hospital. I was in so much pain that my body had locked itself into a certain position in trying to relieve some of the pain. I lost 50 pounds in just 6 weeks and totally lost my appetite. Later radiation helped ease the pain and helped me get out of the locked position I was stuck in for over a month. Needless to say, I could no longer walk and had to re-learn. It took me about 5 weeks to learn to walk. It was painful, but managed to get thru it. It took me sometime to develop a taste for food. It was French toast and bacon that triggered my taste buds and ended up having cravings for sausage, pancakes and hot dogs. I haven't eaten a hot dog in 5 years, even longer for bacon and sausages.
I was discharged and went home and kept up with building myself up. I was on an up-swing period and spent a lot of time painting and trying to enjoy my backyard feeding the birds and squirrels during the summer and fall months. Unfortunately, when the winter months came along, the down swing kicked in.
I had to stay away from groups of people in fear of catching any illness someone may have as this could end up in a very bad situation for me. My immune system had dropped and fighting off any kind of a virus wasn't to be. I missed out on grand-kids birthdays, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I was stuck at home. No quality of life here that's for sure. Walking was becoming difficult and getting to my studio which was down a flight of stairs was impossible. The nodes were pressing on the nerves giving me unbelievable right femur pain which would easily spike up to a 10/10. I knew that if I was going down to my studio, coming back up wasn't happening.
It wasn't long after that, that I was urinating blood and ended back in the hospital. Everything from my waste down had swollen and the insertion of a larger catheter wasn't going to happen without some sort of procedure. This was done the following day by my urologist and for the meantime a smaller catheter had to be inserted to get rid of the urine that was backing up in my bladder. I was already having debilitating pain in my lower back and now spreading to my bladder. There was a mass both on my prostate and bladder that had to be removed before feeling some relief.
After this was done and a larger catheter inserted, I would spend the next week getting irrigated for the removal of whatever mass was left inside. There was a lot of clotted blood which was removed daily. In the meantime there wasn't much relief in pain.
Here I am into mid June and am back to 100mcg/hr Fentanyl Pain Patches and taking a pain killer called Delauded....more opiate drugs. I don't know whether I'm coming or going these days and seem to be in a daze for the most part. I started chemo last week and was sick for the first 3 days. Once again I lost my taste buds and started losing a lot of weight. I turned back to eating crispy bacon to see if it would trigger my taste buds and it did.
I got me a wheel chair to move around in but still need to use crutches to go up and down a few steps to get to my vehicle. I can't walk more than a few yards at a time because the pain spikes in my right femur to a 10/10. Thus far my life is sitting around with my legs elevated waiting for the water pills to help get rid of the swelling in my lower extremities thru the use of the catheter. There seems to be some relief from the swelling and pain per Foley bag and maybe with a little more luck and time, things will get a little better. As for quality of life? That remains to be seen!
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| a 11"x14" acrylic painting painted on special art paper |
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