[Leica] health

[Richard Man]

Herb, have hope! 100 is not that far off!

On Thu, Dec 25, 2014 at 4:04 PM, Herbert Kanner <kanner at acm.org> wrote:

> 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.
>
>
>
>
>
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