This is a listing of significant points of identification of the two cancers, the treatments for each and increasing understanding of the influence of dance or lack thereof.
TIME LINE – PROSTATE CANCER
2016 – Evaluated increase in PSA. Since tests do not show an infection is the cause, the search for a urologist begins.
2017 Jan – Biopsy confirmed Prostate Cancer. Dancing with high energy as an outlet for the fear and anger the disease presents.
2017 Feb – June – Evaluated options including learned about the 9 principal factors for fighting/preventing cancer and generally healthier living.
2017 July-Sept – radiation treatment.
2017-2018 – ever decreasing PSA readings.
TIME LINE – LYMPHOMA
2020 Feb – Covid pandemic shuts down contra dancing.
2021 July – Only one evening of dance at a weekend dance, Roanoke Railroader, still no local dances.
2021 August/September – Loosing strength, stamina, weight [a low of 131 lbs] excessive sleeping and decline in cognitive thinking, balance, added essential tremor, constipation but all tests and even needle biopsies did not determine cause. Fear of walking as not sure if I would have the ability to get up but go ahead and walk as I know it is what the body needs. My feeling is “living-death” so that’s what I named it.
OVER 2 YEARS OF NOT KNOWING WHAT WAS WRONG WITH ME THE SPIRIT WAS TRULY WEIGHED DOWN.
2022 Aug – beginning of regular contra dances. Dancers I didn’t know then tell me they see I’m having problems. But I attend every local dance available, even though I did fall two different times. After each dance strength, stamina and thinking improve ever so slightly, but real, for one or two weeks after each dance. Both Cynthia and I could see it as well as other people.
THE SPIRIT BEGINS TO IMPROVE
2023 Jan – appointment with oncologist at Martha Jefferson Hospital suspects cancer. Also get PT for balance/walking.
2023 March 30 – finally get lymph node removed. Initial pathology is Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, re-evaluation of sample reveals non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma/Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma of lymph nodes of head (primary encounter). I’m elated it’s cancer, something that can be cured and that it is NOT Parkinsons, UVA test confirmed, and it’s NOT Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy which my grandson has.
2023 May 23 – first of six R-CHOP infusions* on three week intervals. Within two weeks I’m asking if my feeling improvement is real*. The inner 5 year old child in me begins to appear.*
2023 Sept 05 – last infusion.
2023 Nov 01 – PET scan shows NO cancer AND oncologist asks when do I want the medi-port taken out? Hearing NO CANCER was fine, being told I could have the medi-port removed, I just broke down crying for relief and joy!
2023 Nov 17 – dance hard at CCC contra dance, Celebrate Crushing Cancer. THANK YOU EVERYONE.
2023 Nov – My inner 5 year old celebrates another birthday even though birth certificate reads “born: Nov 1943”.
2023 mid – Dec mild PTSD begins resulting from having been so far down for so long. Sometimes I tear up being so grateful at what I have and where I’m at while other times I feel the severe down of the past where I was struggling to exist.
2023 late Dec – Unsure of who to tell and what/how much to say about my emerging recovery of strength.
2024 Feb – A dancer tells me when she last saw me at Tropical Dance Vacation, Feb 2020, she saw a decline in my being.
2024 April – tears at Springforth Ball dance weekend. I find it hard to tell if it is tears of joy or remembering depths of down and had only enough energy to, with difficulty, put one foot in front of the other, to simply exist.
2024 Dec 10 – Oncologist reviews tests and reports “Everything looks fantastic today no concerns.…….You’re in remission! Keep up the great work and keep dancing!”
*Renewed energy enhanced my 5 year old inner child…..some might call it “reborn”. In the movie SHORT CIRCUIT the fifth military robot, #5, is struck by lightning and the robot becomes alive. That is what the chemo did for me so I refer to me sometimes as #5 reflecting my 5 year old inner child, similar to the movie, the robot says: “Johnny #5 is alive. For me, I am #5, I am ALIVE!