Letter to Suport Group January 11, 2017

I sent this letter to my family and support group on January 11, 2017.  The ongoing issue has been the stomach issues, which have affected my appetite and the amount I have eaten. As a result I have lost weight.  My GP put me on three ondansetron a day and one protonix a day. These two medications have reduced my discomfort and allowed me to consume many more aalories a day than I did during January.  I have the surgeon who conducts the paracentesis (drain ascites out of my abdominal cavity) to thank for the encouragement to eat much more than I had been.

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Hi, this report is a bit more difficult than ones I have previously written. So first some bad news and then some good. My PSA is 68 up once again. As a result I am finished with chemo. That leaves me with some difficult choices. I can try to enter a clinical trial in Texas (I will talk to them and let you know), I can continue on an old chemo daily pill, or I can join hospice. The oncologist thinks I have about 4 months left on this glorious earth. There. That’s the worst. At this point I do not know which I will choose, maybe several.

Since my last chemo session in late November I have had non-stop stomach and lower GI ailments that have left me feeling weak and quite a few pounds lighter. At one point I spent 4 days in the hospital as they worked on my problems. As a result I had 3 liters of ascites (a fluid in the abdominal cavity) drained from me and will have several more drained on this Friday. 

But we had a wonderful Christmas. The entire family gathered on South Padre Island in a big house (7 bathrooms, 3 kitchens, a pool) on the beach. We had a marvelous week sharing adventures of many kinds. What a wonderful gift we were all able to give one another. In the upcoming weeks I will have two displays of my photos in local venues.  One display is a picture from each month of my 366 project and the other is my images from the same project paired with the oil painting renditions of those images by a local artist. It is such fun to share my work. My niece, brother and sister-in-law will visit us next weekend and the first week of February we hope to be in Seattle for a much looked forward to visit.

I am not sure of any travel plans for our future. If my stomach quiets down we will try to get out to see whatever is interesting in the area.

We have some serious work ahead of us. Thank you once again, as I have said so many times, for your support. I could not do this without you. As I go forward I am not afraid and I am not worried.

I love you. Hug the ones you love,

Dan