Patients share their experiences with chemotherapy, hormone therapy, surgery, and radiation, offering honest perspectives on recovery, side effects, and adapting to life during treatment. Their stories highlight the value of staying active, learning practical strategies to manage side effects, and seeking support from healthcare teams and fellow patients.
Michael Salvadore, Jr.:
So after going through and visiting all these medical institutions and getting all this information and having a consultation with my PCP and my urologist, two guys that were just tremendously important, and talking with my wife and some other friends who had gone through it, I decided that I would enroll in a trial at Dana-Farber, which was a double chemo.
And my first chemo was July 1st, 2008. It was a Wednesday. I drove up from Narragansett with my oldest friend, longest friend that I've known for, I don't know, now 60-some odd years, and I got my first chemo on that Wednesday. I left Dana-Farber, and we went down on Newbury Street in Boston. We had lunch on the street. We were watching people. We went shopping. I drove home that afternoon. I went surfing. The next day I went to work.
Friday was the third, had friends up from New York. We had a party on my deck. I'm like, "Oh, this is going to be a piece of cake. I'm going to go through chemo, and I'm going to sail through this." We watched the fireworks. I had a couple of glasses of wine.
I woke up the next day, and the 8th Army had rolled over me, and nobody told me it takes a few days for it to hit you. That was my first experience with chemo, and every three weeks after that, I would get treated. I went through 36 weeks of chemotherapy, which turned out was a successful course of treatment for me.
John Gritzmacher:
So I am on a program of Eligard and Zytiga and some other medications to help with side effects. So I've been really religiously doing those drugs and doing those protocols. And my last number of readings of my PSA are down where the doctor wants them, down very low. So that's good.
Interviewer:
That is good. So when did you start the Eligard and then the Zytiga?
John Gritzmacher:
I started around March, yeah, because my birthday is at the beginning of April, and it was March. And a couple of the things that doctor told me was that this would reduce my testosterone to very small amounts, or actually kill it off. And some of the side effects would be loss of muscle mass and bone density. So I decided that it's time for me to start working out.
Rickey Lee:
The worst thing that I went through during the cancer surgery was the catheter. The rest of it was a breeze. It was a breeze. I couldn't believe it. The surgery, I didn't feel it. I didn't feel none of the cuts, none of the pain, nothing like that. The only thing I felt was that catheter.
And me, myself, personally, I think it could've come out the second day. The first day, the second day. That's me now, personally, because that's the only thing hurt me.
Roland Bessette:
That's kind of where I stand now. There are a few things that you're going to expect. You're going to get some things every time you have the medication. For instance, in the beginning, the first couple of times, my hands actually got a whole new skin because the skin came right off and came back on. So we thought, okay, that's not bad. I can deal with that.
And then, all of a sudden, my fingernails all got discolored and looks like they're probably going to be just growing out, and then it'll be fine. So that's to me, after hearing, you hear stories about people having so many problems with the medication, that was all. I mean, it was really great for me that my hands, that was it. So anyway, so that was it.
And actually yesterday I had to go to get an ultrasound because it seemed like there might be something in my legs, especially my left leg. But fortunately, it came out that everything was in within normal stuff. It's probably just something I got to work out left over from the chemo. So we'll just take care in doing that.
Michael Morris:
Taxotere is very severe. I was told that after three rounds, that's all most people can take. And that after four rounds, you'll probably be in a wheelchair. I took six rounds standing up. The first round caused me great pain, especially in my legs. You lose massive amounts of sleep, and you're bedridden for weeks. And then the second round was pretty much the same thing. And the fifth round was really bad. The other rounds I just passed through. It was just like normal. I was able to function.
But then it was diagnosed that Taxotere did nothing for me. There was no positive effects in my cancer. In fact, my PSA was rising, and it was in the 200s. And so then I was informed that if Taxotere doesn't do any good for you, that the withdrawals are worse than actually taking the medication, and I was bedridden for four months.
Jeff Pawlak:
Some of the experiences I had going on this journey, I like to tell people because the cancer clinic uses me as a resource for people that are on the fence, for men that, "Should I have this? Should I have that?" And the first two things they want to talk to you is about sexual erections and leaking.
And I usually just bring it up right to the front and say, "Let's talk. Okay. Here's what happened to me. My sexual function was fine. You have dry ejaculations, something I didn't know about, I learned on my own, and it's been okay. And if it doesn't work, there are so many other things that I've learned about over the years that you can do, all the way up to implants."
And then as far as leakage goes, I go, "Well, do you have any children?" And they go, "Yeah, I have children." "Do you remember when your wife did Kegels? When she was doing these exercises to strengthen up her pelvic area and her bladder?" "Well, yeah." And I go, "That's what we do. We do Kegels, and we do it all." And you can even time yourself as to, "Okay, if I do have a little leakage, how long can I hold it before I have to go to the bathroom?" I started at two hours, and then I've increased it since then. But those are just the things that I would not have known to ask unless someone had told me about how to do that.
And a few other things I like to share with people is I always give them a couple tips. I go, "After the robotic surgery, I had to wear a catheter for a week. And this catheter is not a flexible small one. It's a big one. So I go in, I have it taken out, everything's fine." And they make you sleep on your back.
So I go home, I go to bed that night, put my Depends on, go to sleep. I'm sleeping on my back. One, two o'clock in the morning, I feel this warm liquid all over my stomach, and I go, "What?" I went in the bathroom and I just laughed and I said, "God, you got me on that one." It's not going to soak into the pad if you're on your back. You have to then switch and sleep on your stomach. So you learn these little tricks as you go along.
But I will say when I went through radiation, it was tough. It was tough because you had to drink a bottle of water and then sit there and hold it. But the staff was just great. If you can be kind to these people, it's just unbelievable what they have to see and go through every day. And the more kind you are to them, they respond in ways you'd never explain.