Thursday, February 1, 2018

The Ca Pros Report for Jan 2018


Not a very pretty result this week. My PSA is up from 41 to 60, the highest it's been for a year or more.

However, I have to confess that somehow in the packing process for our cruise, I didn't take along my Zytiga and in spite of great cooperation from our neighbour Brian and NZ Post, I didn't have them until we'd been to Sydney and back to Dunedin. Given its previous rate of doubling, the figure of 60 seems to be entirely what one would expect for eight or so days of no medication, so no surprises. Now we're plodding on with the pills and hoping for the best. But I really should be spanked.

Just before we went away I did a fascinating interview for a Univ of Otago study on the end of life opinions of people who are terminal. The draft of our conversation has just come back and the transcriber seems to have added ("laughter") to almost every comment on some 25 pages of script. It was certainly a lot of fun. As well as opening up some areas of thinking that I needed to turn over... It is good to be able to deal with these issues in a whimsical frame of mind. May it ever be so.

And I've just had a chat with Kirsten from somewhere down south who phones me up every month or so at the expense of the supplier of Zytiga. She gives them feedback on how I seem to be coping with the stuff - it's always an interesting chat and I am impressed that the company can go to the expense of keeping in touch with people who are using its product. So far, all my experience has been very positive but I guess they won't be pleased to hear that I missed more than a week on it...

Now, the big effort is to prepare a submission for the Justice Committee on the End of Life Choice Bill which is now at the discussion stages. I brought back a major cold so life here is only slowly resuming its normal course.  In fact I think I'll now go and have a Nanna Nap for a bit...


But, first, if you're so minded, here's the info on making a submission:
Submissions on the End of Life Choice Bill can be sent to the Justice select committee, by email, letter, or online. Submissions close on February 20, 2018.








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