Trevor Maxwell is a remarkable man. A young colorectal cancer survivor, he and Joe Bullock, another colorectal cancer survior, have formed Man Up To Cancer. This is a safe and suportive space for male surviors to speak about their condition.
Trevor comes to AnCan via our good friend at Inspire, John Novack, and also through our prostate cancer participant, Russ Smith who is active in Man Up To Cancer. Trevor’s recent video essay on situation is touching and piercing at the same time. Here is what he writes:
6.24.20
“When the storm of cancer hits, you need protection. Something to shield and strengthen you. My shield is an oak tree.”
This short film on YouTube (4 min) was produced and edited by my talented friend, Roger McCord. With stunning footage taken from ground level and from high above the coastline, the film captures the heartache and hope of my cancer journey.
The TALK is a series of webinars addessing how parents and kids of every age speak to each other about their health conditions. If you haven’t noticed, this is a topic that rarely get aired in public – AnCan hopes to address that over the next several months.
We started last Tuesday, June 30 with a discussion around prostate cancer, moderated by genitourinary medical oncologist extraordinaire, Dr. Alicia Morgans speaking with panel members that included pairs of father and child from ages 17 to 43. We also welcomed Dr. Ryan Berglund, a urologist at Clevaland Clinic and spokesperson for MENtion It, a men’s health awareness campaign sponsored by his institution. Dr. Berglund had excellent slides and a 2 minute video that we were unable to view due to a SNAFU by our co-presenters, UsTOO. But the magic of modern technology allows us to provide them to you here …. click here – the video is embedded in the 5th of 6 slides. And to watch the whole, outstanding presentation, click on the video above
AnCan is a huge proponent of inclkuding palliative care in your treatment plan and medical team!!
Palliative care is NOT about hospice or end-of-life ….. that is just a sub-set of palliative medicine. At AnCan we prefer to call it Symptom Management, the lingo used by UCSF. That is no coincidence as AnCan has an excellent longstanding relationship with the UCSF service. Dr. B.J. Miller is on our Advisory Board, and Dr.Mike Rabow, the Director of Symptom Management Service at UCSF, is a friend of the family too.
Last Friday, Dr. Rabow gave an excellent webinar on CureTalks titled Redefining Palliative Care – you can listen here. For those living with advanced cancer, auditing this webinar is a MUST in our view!
More good news to offset the difficulties of advanced cancer treatment!
If you have been paying attention, you will have noted that ADT (androgen deprivation therapy) drugs may protect against COVID19. A certain male protein, TMPRSS2, acts as a door handle for the virus to enter the lungs. ADT drugs suppress TMPRSS, and the LHRH antagonist, degarelix (Firmagon) has been shown to be very effective in controlling the virus in an Italian trial and is now being tested here in the US through the VA System; Prostate Cancer Foundation has sponsored both trials. Here are a couple of links to enlighten you:
Now the BBC is reporting this morning that dexamethasone may be a “lifesaving” COVID19 drug. Dexamethasone is a steroid, frequently used around the time of infusion for intravenous infused chemotherapy. In the UK RECOVERY Trial it has been shown to perform as a very effective agent to control the immune system, hence the aggression of the COVID19 virus. AND its inexpensive and readily available!
So if you are anything like our intrepid AnCan Board Chair, Peter Kafka, and currently on ADT and chemo, you may be very well protected against COVID19.
New G4+4 Dx with very low PSA; Tx after Lu177 PSMA fails; immunotherapy with no positive markers vs Jevtana; perineal pain; successful RT to prostate for Mx man; remarkable continued success from abi; interpreting inconsistent scan report; recurrent PCa plateaus w/o treatment; continued success from PARP-I
Chat Log
Jake Hannam (to Everyone): 5:21 PM: Jonathan Epstein 410-955-5043
Len (to Everyone): 6:00 PM: Talabostat is an experimental drug that initiates an inflammatory response in the tumor microenvironment, converting cold tumors to hot tumors and thereby making them better targets for checkpoint inhibitors, like pembro or nivolumab. The open-label Phase 2 basket trial is NCT04171219
scott (to Everyone): 6:01 PM: I have to go. I have an online class tonight. Best to everyone. See you next meeting.
Larry Fish (to Everyone): 6:35 PM: there are a number of variations on the ‘perianal abscess leading to lumps and related painful cysts and common and unusual perianal conditions….you can just Google any of the related terms and get to the articles and links that I ran into in my intermittant condition and still looking for a definitive answer or treatment that relolves it permanently. So I use a ring pillow for my chair and it comes and goes.
