January 2011: Discovered I had Gleason 10 Stage 4 Prostate Cancer.

I was advised by one of the best doctors on the East Coast that death was inevitable. Considering the stage and aggressiveness of the cancer, I accepted the outcome and began two projects. 1. I would do whatever is necessary to die happy. 2. I would, without going to extremes, attempt to extend the time that I have with you all as long as possible.

I started hormone therapy and then radiation therapy at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

Radiation was followed by chemotherapy, also at Johns Hopkins, which did keep my PSA down for 4 months, but the side effects were so horrible I am not sure it was worth it. The oncologist had talked about “quality of life” but there was none.

We tried Alpharadin in Philadelphia but that ended up causing more harm than benefit because the radiation damaged the bone marrow as much as the cancer did.

We finally found a doctor in Bethesda who is treating me as a patient rather than as a study subject. He has temporarily slowed the growth of the cancer (although not the effects) and helped me obtain an actual decent quality of life, at least for a while.

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