Hello from Yellowknife. This week I have met with an urologist who has agreed that I have an enlarged prostate that is hindering urination. So on Wednesday I had lighted scopes put through my urethra to view my bladder wall and my prostate, literally all in living color. I could see the enlarged prostate and the inflamed wall of my bladder where the catheter has rubbed against it, probably the source of blood in my urine from time to time, as seen in the urine bags strapped to me.
So I am still wearing the bags until further notice - meaning that Dr Sarah Cook (rather than Dr Mansouri) will consult with the urological surgeons in Edmonton to see what must be done. Personally I hope that they decide to remove my prostate altogether.
Now the key problem though is that my pain has increased exponentially since my last blog. I mentioned being down to two pills a day. Well now I am up to two pills every three hours and only barely holding the pain in check. Sometimes I have to take an extra pill or two in between regular three hour marks. Tuesday night this week my pain was absolutely incredible, and I actually screamed a couple of times during the night. The pain would cycle between 8 and 10 out of 10 in my Sacrum area with pain shooting down the outside of both legs. And with an added extreme jab like sticking a knife in me from time to time if I moved just the wrong way, and the wrong way kept changing from time to time! That night I only got three or four hours of sleep. I actually thought of Jesus on the cross, and for the first time in my life I felt that I understood his physical pain before he died.
So the upshot of that is that I have had new patches prescribed. My normal weekly patch change is Saturday, but now with the new fentanyl patches I have to remove the old patch, wait 12 hours for the old opoid drug to wear off, then put the fentanyl patch on and wait another up to 12 hours for the pain relief to take effect. So my family doctor Dr. Robson has the ER at Inuvik Hospital all ready to receive me tomorrow afternoon after our return to Inuvik from Yellowknife. So I will stay in Hospital so that the nurses can monitor my pain which will likely go through the roof during the 20 hours or so before the new patch takes effect.
The moral of this story is that cancer is fickle, and always finds a way to keep up its attack. The doctors here at Yellowknife Stanton Hospital in the urology unit believe that my enlarged prostate could have something to do with the pain increase. How could this be? Well the tumor is at the S1/S2 position, and at the S2/S3 right near by are the nerves that interact with the bladder and prostate. So, those nerves might be now cozying up to the tumor and further exacerbating the pain situation.
So whereas I am planning on a fairly long future on this earth, there is no telling how accurate my forecast may be. The tumors could decide to start growing again. However, Sandra is very hopeful that going to a vegan diet will reduce all inflammation and actually shrink the tumors. So that is our next little experiment.
So on that encouraging note, good night folks.
