The Real Struggle Of Late Stage Advanced Cancer Is The Limited Options

With any journey, there are road hazards. This journey has been no different. It’s left me exhausted, frustrated, and as if I’m staring at the barrel of a loaded gun.

There is a two-step forward and five-step back cycle. It took months for them to diagnose the cancer officially, and when they did, it was about as bad as it could be. Do miracles happen?

What I call miracles do happen, or appear to, and give hope. Here are a few examples:

The number 4 doctor in the country for this type of cancer is within an hour of home.

A doctor capable of working with insurance enough to push through approvals for hard-to-get medicines.

A doctor can change things enough that a PSA test goes from its highest of 941 back down to 25.2.

Stage IV and the advanced spread the scans all indicated had the doctors questioning how I kept going as much as I have up to now.

Every time a nurse or doctor asks about pain, I can still honestly tell them not much.

Those are the miracles I’ve felt throughout this whole godforsaken process. When a doctor says, “You are facing a disease that will kill you”, that is a heavy thing to carry. When you start to see things turn in your favor and you see a reason to think you can beat the 75% odds against you beating cancer, it feels like God directing you toward a second chance.

There have been five consistent pieces of advice from the experts, a couple of trusted sources, and a cancer survivor. Those are:

Get enough rest: Like any other disease or illness, rest is imperative. The right amount of rest is vital to health and wellness. When sick, it becomes more crucial.

Medicines: Taking medicine is crucial to dealing with your illness, much like following your doctor's instructions.

Hydration: Some illnesses are hard to treat and cancer is probably at the top of the list. Imagine prostate cancer. One of the effects is constantly having to pee. Then there are the medicine side effects. Stay hydrated is something I’ve heard repetitively.

Stress management: When you’re ill, or facing a disease, the effects of stress on your body become more apparent. Unfortunately, managing stress sometimes depends on the world around you cooperating.

Proper Nutrition: Cancer is one of those illnesses that robs you of your energy and hurts your mental health. Appetite is affected during chemotherapies. It’s important to eat, stay strong, and stay motivated.

Chemotherapy Side Effects

It’s the side effects that will decide the future. The side effects and your circumstances, to be accurate.

One of the things that you might find, as I have, is out of your control is the ability to focus on rest and healing.

When you’re young enough that you aren’t retired and drawing a pension you need an income and insurance. Income and insurance are tools for fighting a disease like cancer.

The side effects of chemotherapy are harsh and can appear at any time. Cancer patients enter into chemotherapy in the hopes of extending their shortened lifespans back to what they could have been. Nobody wants to leave their families, especially when they need us.

Thus, the paradox. The very thing that can save your life, give you a chance of beating the dreaded disease, and make you able to be there for your loved ones that need you, is also the thing that can take you out of life. Symptoms like neuropathy in your hands and feet can severely limit your abilities to work, thus costing you your income, and threatening your insurance, and everything you’ve worked your life for.

That is the problem. Despite promising results in laboratory tests showing a real chance at a comeback story from this aggressively spreading cancer, neuropathy in my feet has begun making it harder and harder to be on my feet. My balance has been severely affected.

I called the cancer center to talk to them about it, and there isn’t anything they can do. They assured when the chemo treatments were over the symptoms would likely go away. With 15 weeks of chemo in front of me and my feet getting worse, I still need to maintain an income.

It is a horrible choice.

In a perfect world, nobody would find themselves facing this disease. In a better world, nobody would find themselves unable to focus on healing and beating the disease because of the high price of care and not being able to take a leave of absence from jobs and still afford to live and pay their basic bills and essentials.

People facing cancer should be able to focus on healing their bodies. That means:

Maintaining their treatments

Getting enough rest

Getting enough exercise

Proper nutrition and hydration

Controlling their stress

A chemotherapy plan differs with people, but mine was for 18 weeks. With 16 weeks remaining, that’s four months. I’d hoped to dodge all the side effects and face the days I had to get treatment. I’d hoped other than the nausea and some fatigue, I could keep going through the whole process.

However, I need my feet working, and I work with my hands. What a choice to have to make.

Wow! What a crap year I’m having. The expectation without the chemotherapies is less than 24 months according to oncology doctors. The advanced prostate cancer doctor was hopeful that with the results of genetic testing showing a drug that could stomp out the cancer in my prostate, the chemo working, and the orals working, I could see the other side of this and live my natural life. At only 52 that was great news. Having to stop the chemotherapy, with the spread of the cancer being as rapid as it was through my body, well, to say I feel like that’s the most unfair thing I’ve ever gone through is an understatement.

So much for miracles.