[Leica] health

[kanner at acm.org (Herbert Kanner)]

Since everyone regards LUG as family and reports their health issues, I?ll 
throw mine in. This won?t be real short, because the details are interesting.

In 2001, my PSA jumped and I had the uncomfortable needle biopsy via 
ass-hole. Of nine needles, one picked up a couple of millimeters of malign 
cells which were pronounced to be aggressive. I then had many sessions of 
what is misnamed ?Intensity modulated radiation therapy?. Actually what 
happens is the source of the radiation rotates in a vertical plane around 
the patient and during the rotation, the shape of the beam is modulated by a 
diaphragm of tungsten fingers so as to always concentrate the radiation on 
the desired site. One time, I was really scared because the treatment was 
delated due to a computer crash, and when I asked what the computer program 
was housed in, they said Windows 2000.

Every year since, my PSA was checked and my prostate poked by the radiation 
oncologist.

A couple of months ago, I felt a sore muscle in my left thigh; I just 
thought it was a pulled muscle, and Naproxen relieved it. But just one day, 
it was so sever that I was limping, so I thought it would be a good idea to 
go to my primary care quack and check it out. When she pulled my leg 
outward, I yelled ?ouch? and she ordered a hip X-ray to be done on my way 
out.

By the time I got home, there was a frightful message on my answering 
machine. I was to go asap to the Stanford Hospital site in a neighboring 
city (Redwood City) where an appointment had been set up for a CAT scan. 
Then I was to drive straight to the Main Hospital at Stanford (Palo Alto) 
and see the same radiation oncologist. Also they were setting up an 
appointment, probably for the next day, for a radioactive bone scan.

The radiation oncologist showed me the X-rays and Cat scans on his computer 
screen. First there was a large lesion on my left femur. Then there was a 
bunch of little dots in my lungs that were not there two years ago. I said I 
was appalled. He said he was appalled. He then opined that my hip was about 
to break, that he checked that an orthopedic surgeon was available on or 
immediately after the weekend, and that the quickest way to get admitted to 
the hospital was via the emergency room. He had his resident wheel me there.

Well, on the way in, the rent-a-cop confiscated my Swiss army knife, and 
when it was apparent with a packed ER that I?d be there for a while, I got 
around to phoning my wife. They were so packed that I had to wait until 
there was a free bed.

After the routine things, mainly a blood draw, an orthopedic guy showed up. 
He said that there was no danger of a fracture, that I should go home and 
have a normal weekend, and that an appointment had been made to see an 
orthopedic surgeon on the following Tuesday. I guess it was probably thirty 
years since the radiation oncologist had learned to interpret that sort of 
X-ray.

On that day, my wife went along for moral support. Interestingly enough, all 
three of us in the room had something in common: doctorates from the 
University of Chicago, mine in physics, Lee?s in biochemistry, and the 
surgeon whatever real doctors get. The latter spent most of the forty-five 
minutes teaching me how to read the X-ray, primarily why it showed that 
there was no current risk of a fracture. When I inquired about either 
surgical support of the bone or just drilling to get a sample for a biopsy, 
he said that the risks outweighed the benefits. He said it was probably 
metastatic prostate cancer, slow-growing, and tending to deposit bone. Next 
appointment in a month with immediately preceding X-ray to assess fracture 
risk.

I finally got to see a medical oncologist. She indicated that this kind of 
cancer without PSA rising is very rare, but does happen. She felt that we 
had to know what we were dealing with, and if the surgeon reported that 
there was no way to get a sample with a needle, she was going to make the 
assumption that those dots on my lungs were not an infection residue but 
were the same tumor, and one of them was very accessible to a cat scan 
guided needle.

I?m waiting for that and will keep you posted. I?ll be 93 in June. I doubt 
that I?ll make 100.

Herb



Herbert Kanner
kanner at acm.org
650-326-8204

Question authority and the authorities will question you.