SteveFossOfElyMN

My friends and family: Thank you for  helping, and for staying with me. 

One year into the two-year prostate cancer treatment, the cancer remains undetectable. The hormone removal therapy leaves me very weak with muscle loss, in a lot of pain, and highly emotional (not to mention the night sweats). Basically classical menopause symptoms. 

I have three bulged discs in my back, where the worst of the cancer had metastasized. A fourth bulged disc has now collapsed, so the pain is intense. Some type of surgery looms.

There’s been no new assessment of my two declining heart valves. That’ll wait til after the chemo is done.

The expenses have been very high, and will continue, and we’re now both on Social Security, and retired. 

So I’m hoping some of you might be able to help out. So many have been so generous that it hurts to ask for more 

Thank you for this lovely support. 

The bottom line is this: the cancer is no longer detectable. PSA 0.00.

That means we did it! I did it, Mayo did it, my network of friends and family did it, and YOU did it. 

Thank you! ❤️

After a September diagnosis of Stage 4 prostate cancer, Gleason 5+4, metastases in spine, pelvis and one lymph node, PSA 46+ — things were not looking great.

Now, after my final round of radiation at Mayo, I am home. I’ll keep getting Androgen Removal Therapy shots periodically, and will take daily oral ADT meds, all designed to remove testosterone and to actively kill more cancer cells.  

My radiation oncologist says the goal is to leave fewer than 100 individual cancer cells. I said let’s shoot for 0. She laughed, but saw the look on my face. OK, she said seriously. Zero. 

I can’t yet do all I used to. I’ll be on these meds another 18 months so we can kill every last damn cell possible. But the meds (removal of all testosterone) cause muscle loss and weakness, among other problems, and that’s no joke. So I’m slow and careful, and very gradually getting used to the idea that a once-a-month Social Security check is my retirement income. 

How blessed I feel, and how grateful I am for all you have done. 

Be well, all. 🔥☘️💚

Hey everybody.

Mayo Clinic being who they are, we’re about to spend a month and a half beating a path to Rochester. 

The theme? Leaving no stone unturned. 

I have a series of appointments starting next week to prep for a month of radiation treatments. The idea is to zap all the cancer cells they can, and then we’ll keep on with the Androgen Deprivation Therapy with monthly monitoring of PSA level. 

it appears that’ll be the pattern of my remaining years. Couple years? Twenty-five years? No way to tell. If, in the future, PSA levels rise, it’ll be back to Mayo for more radiation.

I’ve had to retire from active work. The ADT side effects include muscle weakness, you see.

Thanks to all of you for helping us along this very difficult way. Mayo says no one fights cancer alone. In my case that’s certainly been true. We have this final push ahead of us, and then I’ll employ the Irish goodbye so you don’t have to keep hearing about it. 😁

Hey gang.

The news is so good I'll cut to the chase, and fill in the rest of the details after.

Just got my first blood work back after the radiation and a month of chemo. 

In just that one course of treatment, we've killed 99.9% of the cancer. That's damn near unheard of. You should all share in that celebration, because you played an important role. ❤️

So we're scheduling another round of radiation at Mayo for the middle of next month. My PSA (prostate-specific antigen) as treatment began in November was 46+. Normal is 0-4. Yesterday it was 0.04!

Bad news is that, though the radiation will finish off almost all of what's left, there'll never be zero cancer cells, so I'll probably be on chemo for the next year or two, and quite probably the rest of my life. 

I'll take that trade. 👍

Once the cancer has been essentially eliminated (hopefully, there are no certainties) then it’ll be time to tackle the faulty heart valves.  

I’m sure next month’s treatments at Mayo won’t be my last. Your support has been vital, and I thank all who have given it from the bottom of my heart.

If you have already contributed, or if you are unable to, please share this to your social media. That has huge impact, and will be a Godsdnd while I try to figure out how to make a living from here on out, since it seems I’ll be around for awhile.

Love to all. ❤️