"...In the end, people either have excuses or experiences; reasons or results; buts or
brilliance. They either have what they wanted or they have a detailed list of all the rational reasons why not."

~ Anonymous
(taken from Matt Erbele's, It Takes Time to Get Good)

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Hormones, where art thou?

For those of you that may not know my husband was diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer this February. We have decided on an equally aggressive three pronged treatment plan and the first phase of this is hormone therapy with a drug called Lupron. This will be started for 2 months prior to and then during two rounds of radiation. The first round of radiation is with radioactive seed implantation in the prostate and then, after 4-6 weeks, he will go through five and a half weeks of IMRT external beam radiation.


He had his first injection of Lupron 3 weeks ago. Each injection lasts 3 months and he will have a total of 2 injections. I will try not to go all biology teacher-y on you guys, but basically Lupron is a LHRH agonist, meaning that it blocks the hormone that stimulates the release of testosterone from the testicles (and the release of estrogen from the ovaries in females, but to my knowledge he has no ovaries, so I think he is cool there. Shut up, G). Therefore, after Lupron administration the testosterone level, which prostate cancer cells need to grow and divide, drops to near zero.Dropping a man's testosterone level to zero can cause a whole host of nasty side effects. Not the least of which is sending him into a menopausal type state. Hotflashes, mood swings, crazed appetite, the whole she-bang.

Errr....

I am sorry, but I would like to keep the mystery of female hormone swings a bit of a, well, mystery to my husband. I am definitely guilty of pulling the I-am-NOT-a-complete-bitch-it-just-the-hormones-you-however-are-a-complete-asshole-'cuz-I-said-so-and-by-the way-when-was-the-last-time-you-sloughed-the-lining-of-your-uterus?! card at certain times of the month and his getting a little window into the reality of that hell may dilute some its enigmatic power.

The REAL bitch of it is that he is handling it like a champ. He probably won't even gain an ounce.

Fucker.

He says completely rational things like "my appetite is artificially elevated, so I do not need to eat." or "I should step up my exercise since my energy levels are low and I know it improves my mood and overall energy."

Since when do hormones work like that?!

I call, bullshit.

Clearly testosterone is the 98 pound weakling of the hormone world and the little bitch sister of REAL hormones like estrogen and progesterone. (hmm... there is a misogynist metaphor if I ever saw one. My apologies)


If you run out of either of those bad boys you won't be calmly discussing "artificially elevated hunger", or a "suspected increased in impatience."


Now, you all are free to remind me of this snarky ass post about him sailing through hormone therapy problem free, if next week I am writing about coming home to find him wearing my red thong and watching Valerie Bertinelli in a Lifetime movie, but so far so good.

Current score: Mr. RBR 1 Prostate Cancer 0

13 comments:

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

So far so good, then. That is GREAT to hear! And you're keeping your sense of humor about it. Also good to hear. Yeah, you do complain a bit, almost to the point where, if this weren't Genteel April, I'd be tempted to tell a variation of the old joke:

Q: How do you make a hormone?

A: Give her her own blog to bitch on.

But since this is Genteel April, I will NOT tell that joke in any but a hypothetical fashion.

Seriously, it's good to hear the hub is doing well. Me? I'd be crying like a little girl.

But I'd be doing that anyway.

Geez, TrannyB, you bring out the unGenteel in me! Let's call this another mulligan. At least I didn't threaten your oviducts this time.

That you KNOW of.

Diana said...

What a crappy way for the hubby to live on the "other" side of hormones. Glad to hear that so far all is going well, hope it continues and then this can be all put behind you both.

Jo Lynn said...

HA! That's funny. What you wrote is funny, not the "real" shit. Of course he's handling it the way he is. Would you expect anything else from him? I hope he continues to be the champ that he is now. Thanks for the update, I've been wondering how he's doing. ;)

Es --- IRONMAN! said...

Glad to hear your hubby is doing well and handling this in typical male fashion! Now throw some chocolate in front of him and see if he can continue to fight off the estrogen!

Isela said...

Glad to hear that everything is going well and that he is keeping his spirits high. Sending hugs and good vibes.

Laura said...

Maybe I'm not too smart or maybe it's because my mothertongue (?) is something else than english, but it took me a while to understand what the t shirt said. I thought it was "This is my random theory shirt".

Love your blog, just started reading it, glad to hear your husband's doing well.

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

That sub-9 was a non-kankle run, TrannyB, so you have to giving me Teh Lurve!

Luv

Glaven/Glavena

SteveQ said...

I thought the Lupron administration was the one with (flagging)Dick Cheney. And I haven't watched a Lifetime movie since Lindsay Wagner stopped doing them and Valerie dropped all the weight (and by that I mean Eddie).

Missy said...

Yeah, we need to keep those little secrets in our back pocket! Blasted, he's gonna bust ALL of us. Thanks a lot;)

Sounds like so far, so good and that he's handling it well. He looks like a tough guy (I'm sure a teddy bear at heart) so I have not doubt he'll give it hell. Hey, and you're there to bitch it right on out of him.

Thinking of yous guys from TN!

Regina said...

ok the situation with your husband, not funny. You, very funny. What a champ for handling it so well, but I'm with you, some things need to remain sacred.

I hope you are hanging in there too. Best.

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

Hey, b*tch, talk to your boy SteveQ. He's making noises about "calling it a career" and it sounds as though he might make that an excuse to stop blogging!

Get over there and administer a swift kick in the n*ts, would you? But not too swift. Make it last. He's into that kinda thing.

SteveQ said...

I didn't say I was going to stop blogging. For one thing, I never got around to explaining how to price collectible figurines or how red hair dye seeps into the scalp causing the particular type of crazy I find an aphrodisiac.

trailturtle said...

Glad hub is doing well and glad you are keeping your humor. This situation is undoubtedly harder on you than you realize. Keep up the training...I am looking forward to the day when you change your blog "name" to "IRON RBR!" Ann