This is just a very short update and, I’m sure you will be amazed, one that does not contain any holiday news.

I had my first blood test since being prescribed the new hormone treatment – Enzalutamide. My appointment was at 8:00 am on Friday morning and by 10:00 am all the results were already on my Patient Portal app to view, apart from the PSA. We had a very tense day waiting, but at 3:00pm the results were in. We were staggered that the PSA had dropped from 17 to 7 in just 4 weeks. This is an amazing result. The last time it was this low was 2 years ago. I really didn’t know what to do with myself, I was still at work doing my data cleansing role, and suspect I made so many many mistakes after seeing the results that it will take me another week to correct them all! 

It will take us a day or two to calm down before we have an oncology review next week. Hopefully that meeting will just be a formality to agree that I should carry on with the Enzalutamide and who knows what will happen to the PSA at the next appointment. Will it continue to drop? I hope so. We had expected that I would have fatigue as a side effect, but at this stage I feel great. I am sleeping better at night and so I have more energy during the day, rather than less.

Talking of side effects, one that I am suffering from is Osteoporosis as a result of having hormone treatment for over six years. So, following a bone density scan I am now taking bone strengthening medication as well as the cancer drugs. Bim has commented that my hair is getting thicker and growing more wild recently. Could that be a side effect of all the combined medication I’m taking? Possibly.

As a special treat for reading this far I am putting the PSA graph on here for you to look at.

Oh, by the way I lied about holiday news. As long as my health holds up we are going to visit the Maldives again in March, for Bim’s 60th birthday. The island this time is Vilamendhoo. We are so excited. We hope to be able to swim with whale sharks and manta rays. Who knows, we may even bump into some good friends over there.

Thank you for reading.