I received an e mail describing a host of cancer-fighting recipies for every meal. They include breakfast, dinners, side dishes, snacks and beverages. This comes from a site called health, hope and inspiration. For the recipies, see the following link.
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Faith and Doubt Cannot Co-Exist
Today was my PSA blood test, a ritual I must undergo every four months or so in order to check if the drug I am currently taking is still effective in controlling my cancer. I was always somewhat apprehensive when test day occurred even earlier in my 23-year history of prostate cancer. But now, as my therapeutic trail contains fewer options, this day takes on its own measure of stress. However, I received an unexpected message of assurance from Dr. David Jeremiah in his February 11th devotional message entitled “Stress and Thanks”. His message was based on three short Biblical verses in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 where it states “rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks.”
“It’s not a law of physics, but it is a law of common sense: No two objects can occupy the same space at the same time. That makes perfect sense to us and we have no reason to try to prove that idea wrong. We move one thing if we want to set another thing in its place. Strangely, we are not as convinced of this law when it comes to spiritual things. For example, we are willing to worry about a problem and proclaim our faith in God at the same time. We don’t have a spiritual law that invalidates our effort, but our experience says it’s contradictory to worry and to praise God simultaneously. In 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, the apostle Paul says there are three things we can do simultaneously since they support one another—rejoice, pray, and give thanks. The prayerful practice of joy and thanksgiving leaves no room for stress or worry. At the first sign of stress, pray and give thanks to God for the joy that comes from trusting Him in all things. Not for all things, but in all things.”
So the next time I encounter a critical stage or testing, do I choose faith in a God and His promises (medicines), or will faith be supplanted with doubt? They cannot share the same space. As the Apostle Paul writes in 2 Timothy 1:12, “for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed.”
As always, if you are unsure of your own relationship with God, see the following link.
Managing Cancer Pain; Are Better Approaches on the Horizon?
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) publishes an e mail blog entitited Current Contents to which one can subscribe. On January 23rd, their blog focused on non-opiod methods of managing cancer pain (see below). Pain is a common and much-feared symptom among people being treated for cancer and long-term survivors. Cancer pain can be caused by the disease itself, its treatments, or a combination of the two. It may be short-lived or chronic, and for some people it can persist long after treatment ends.
The most common cancer types, such as breast, lung, prostate, and colon cancer, rarely cause pain at the site where they originate. One of the most common types of cancer pain is bone pain. Cancer-induced bone pain occurs when metastatic tumors of cancers that start in other parts of the body grow in the bone marrow, the sponge-like tissue in the center of most bones. In fact, bone pain may be the first symptom of several forms of cancer, including prostate and lung cancer.
Researchers have found that “tumors in bone stimulate the sprouting of pain-transmitting nerve fibers near the tumor. Once tumor cells are established in the bone marrow, they hijack the molecules that regulate cells involved in breaking down bone, called osteoclasts. As a result, the osteoclasts get bigger and then they avidly digest bone. To digest bone, osteoclasts create an acidic environment that is almost like pouring battery acid on bone. The causes of bone cancer pain are twofold. First, sensory neurons, or nerve fibers, in bone “detect the acidic environment and signal it as pain. Second, excess osteoclast activity results in microfractures or full fractures of bone that can cause extreme pain.”
Denosumab (Prolia) and bisphosphonates like alendronate (Fosamax), are both first-line therapies for cancer-induced bone pain caused by metastatic cancer. Both denosumab and bisphosphonates, which were originally developed to treat osteoporosis, help maintain bone integrity by reining in osteoclast activity. A potential new treatment for bone pain due to metastatic cancer is an antibody called tanezumab, which blocks the activity of a pain-signaling molecule called nerve growth factor (NGF). Researchers found that in mice, tanezumab blocks nerve-sprouting in bone and reduces the development of late-stage cancer pain. Tanezumab is now being tested in phase 3 clinical trials for cancer-induced bone pain. A related approach seeks to block the actions of NGF by blocking its receptor, known as TrkA (tropomyosin receptor kinase A), on sensory nerve fibers. There is also keen interest in using cannabinoids, chemicals found in marijuana, to treat cancer-induced and other types of bone pain but this research is still in the stage of animal testing.
The NCI article below also describes chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN), often an undesirable side effect of chemotherapy. This is often the reason that patients must reduce their chemotherapy dose or stop treatment prematurely. Other sections in the NCI blog include non-drug approaches to relieving pain and other challenges to pain management.
The entire NCI blog can be found at the following link.
Excellent Informative Prostate Cancer Videos on Several Subjects
The Prostate Cancer Research Institute (PCRI) has produced several short videos covering many aspects of the disease including, imunotherapy, brachytherapy, intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), sexual disfunction, testosterone levels, and more. The speakers include Dr. Mark Moyad, Dr. Eugene Kwon from the Mayo Clinic and others. It is my understanding that such videos will become available on an on-going basis. One can obtain these videos by subscribing to Google below.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPYrfTJMCTfhBNZxb31Z1tg
Mind Boggling New Year Promises
“If you want to feel small, just imagine moving at 34 thousand miles per hour for forty years and getting—astronomically speaking—nowhere. Late last year, the Voyager 2 space probe became the second craft to ever leave our solar system. Now 11 billion miles from earth, it is one of the farthest-flung man-made objects in existence. And it was launched in 1977.
Because there are different ways of defining the solar system, we should be precise. The American Geophysical Union in Washington reports that Voyager 2’s sensors recently detected a sudden dip in radiation and magnetism, which marks the boundary of what astronomers call the “heliosphere,” our sun’s protective bubble of particles and magnetism. In other words, the probe is now beyond our star’s most significant influences and is hurtling into interstellar space—literally “the space between the stars”—at 34 thousand miles per hour. Its departure from the heliosphere is big news because, unlike its twin, Voyager 1, Voyager 2 is still transmitting data back to us here on earth, providing “first-of-its-kind” observations of the nature of this unexplored space. Voyager 2 was originally designed to observe the gas giants Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune—a mission it completed back in 1989. But scientists now think the aging probe might hold together as late as 2027, depending on how long its plutonium fuel source provides power.
The accomplishment of both Voyager probes is unparalleled. Still, astronomically speaking, they’ve only just stepped outside our front door, and barely entered the larger stellar neighborhood. It will take Voyager 2 another 40 thousand years to approach the nearest star to our sun—which together occupy only a fraction of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way, in turn, is just one of at least 100 billion galaxies in the visible universe.” Makes one feel small doesn’t it.
“In the distant reaches of space, there are stars so much bigger than our sun they defy description. The longtime record-holder for largest known star is VY Canis Majoris, a red hypergiant over two thousand times the size of our sun. To give you an idea of the scale we’re talking about, if VY Canis Majoris replaced our sun, it would engulf most of the inner planets of the solar system, including Earth.
Voyager 2’s journey is a constant reminder to us of the enormity of the universe. I don’t know about you, but the distances and objects visible in the night sky make me dizzy; they confront me with the realization of how little I seem to matter by comparison… which is exactly the reaction God wanted us to have. Our own wonder ought to echo the Psalmist, who sung: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?”
God—the Creator of VY Canis Majoris—answered that question, but not ultimately in words. Instead, He came to dwell with His people, first through the Ark in the Tabernacle in the Old Testament, and ultimately in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, whose name means “Immanuel, God with us.” Though it boggles the mind, the maker of the Milky Way chose this little planet to reveal Himself most fully and personally. By doing this, He bridged a gulf that makes the space between our stars seem small—the separation between an infinitely holy God and sinners like us who are doomed to death.
Against this backdrop of our cosmic insignificance, we can better appreciate God’s love—which He demonstrated by ‘coming to our neighborhood.’ Thank God, since we can’t even build a probe able to leave our interstellar neighborhood.”
As stated above, this enormous Creator God can be known in an intimate personal way through Jesus Christ, appropriately named Immanuel, meaning God with us. He is interested in every aspect of our lives including our medical situations. To substantiate this, God gave us hundreds of specific promises in writing, His Word. For example, Deuteronomy 31:8 states “And the Lord is the one who goes ahead of you; He will be with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” For many others, see this website section entitled Scriptural Medicines. To enter into such a personal relationship with God, see the following.
The Voyager 2 essay was published online from “Breakpoint Daily from the Colson Center“, January 8th, 2019 to which I enthusiastically suggest a subscription.
Christmas 2018 and Prostate Cancer
I’ll bet you have never seen the words “Christmas” and “prostate cancer” linked before. Let me start by addressing some personal thoughts about Christmas. When Jesus was born, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph, the father of Jesus, and explicitly told him to name the baby “Immanuel” which means “God with us” (Matthew 1:23 and prophesied hundreds of years earlier in Isaiah 7:14.) Consider the phrase “God with us”. My Bible tells me that God created all things. On a macro scale, this includes universes upon universes, galaxies after galaxies, stars without number. On a micro scale, when one looks at a little ant and consider that this insect who we often step on accidently, has complex biological systems involving brain, nervous, reproductive, sensory and communication systems. The same God created these things. My little finite mind cannot comprehend the enormous scope of God. Not only that, but we are told that Jesus Himself was an integral part of this creation process. “For in Him, all things were created, both in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible,…..through Him and for Him.” (Colossians 1:16). This same Jesus has now taken on human form as a child. Amazing!!!
So why did He do this? Matthew 1:21 tells us that the same angel told Joseph to name Him Jesus, “for it is He who will save His people (us) from their sins.” Why did He have to do that? First, because all of us humans have violated at least one of the ten commandments, probably more than once, a human action called “sin” (not just “mistakes” or “errors”). But couldn’t God forgive eveybody? He does forgive our sins when we confess them to Him (1 John 1:9). He could but that would violate one of God’s unchangeable characteristics, namely His justice. Could you conceive of an earthly judge presiding over a courtroom packed with convicted law-breakers just exclaiming “you’re all forgiven, have a nice day?” Would that be justice? Hardly. A price has to be paid by the offenders. As compensation for our sinful nature and actions, God required a sinless sacrifice, namely Jesus, who we know led a sinless life, died by crucifixion as payment for our sins and was resurrected three days later. The resurrection guarantees us who put our faith and trust in Him the promise of eternal life and also denotes Jesus’ deity as compared with His humanity. One imperfect human being dying for another human would not be a worthy sacrifice.
So, the birth of Jesus then has the significance of an eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God coming to earth, making a personal relationship with Him and God the Father a reality by placing our faith in Jesus and why He came. It furthermore guarantees us eternal life with new bodies such as Jesus possessed after He was resurrected from the dead, in a new heaven and a new earth (which God will one day re-make). (See Revelation 21:1). This can best be summed up in the familiar verse John 3:16. “For God so loved the world” (and all of us included), “that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him” (viz. puts our faith and trust in Him to forgive our sins and desire to serve Him) “will not perish but have everlasting life.”
So how do I make this Christmas message of “God with us” personal as it relates to our imperfect, cancer-prone bodies? Psalm 139 states that this same God, whom we can know personally through a relationship with His Son, Jesus, knows each one of us individually and intrically. In fact, the Psalmist says, “You (God) did form my inward parts, You did weave me in my mother’s womb. ….I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” (verses 13-14). I find it curious that given the amazingly intricate double helical, coil-like, complex shape of our DNA and RNA, the Bible uses the word “weave” or “woven” to describe our body’s construction. So the God who made us and Jesus who is both God and man, can relate to us on an intimate personal level as we battle our diseases. The name Immanuel, God with us, means we can approach Jesus with our broken bodies. He may chose to heal us or sustain now, either through His direct intervention or those of medical personnel, or fulfill the ultimate healing in a new heaven and new earth with a new body. God’s eyes “has seen my unformed substance” and the days that were ordained for me have been written in God’s book (paraphrase from Psalm 139:16). To know this God personally through the child Jesus whose birth we celebrate at this time, allows us to release our fears, anxieties, apprehensions and nervous sorrows. It is a reason to truly have a “Merry Christmas” and a healthy New Year.
Remember Isaiah the prophet foretold hundreds of years prior to Jesus” birth that, “for a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” (Is. 9:6). For information on obtaining a personal relationship with God, see the following link.
Seven Causes of Elevated PSA Levels
- Age. In general, a normal PSA range for men in their 40’s is 0-2.5 ng/mL; men in their 50’s, 0-4 ng/mL; 60’s, 0-4.5 ng/mL; and 70’s, 0-6.5 ng/mL. Ethnicity may shift these values slightly as well.
- Prostate size. A man with a larger-than-normal prostate gland may have a higher PSA level. A digital rectal exam by your physician will detect this.
- Prostate inflamation. Bacterial infections e.g. prostatitis produce inflamed, tender or swollen glands thereby elevating one’s PSA level.
- Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH). BPH is an enlarged prostate and differs from simply having a larger-than-usual gland. It is common in men over 50 and may make urination or ejaculation difficult. Additional tests can confirm BPH.
- Urinary tract infection or irritation. This infection as well as irritation caused by medical procedures involving the urethra or bladder may cause the gland to produce more PSA. If any such procedures have been performed, give the area some time to heal before running a PSA test.
- Prostate stimulation. Stimulation such as through sexual activity, ejaculation or even having a digital rectal exam by your physician may affect PSA results.
- Medications. Some medications can artificially lower the PSA, such as finasteride (Proscar or Propecia) or dutasteride (Avodart). Remind your doctor of any of these medications you may be taking so they can factor them in when assessing your PSA results. This information was obtained from the Prostate Cancer Foundation, www.pcf.org.
Rubraca (Rucaparib) Shrank Tumors in Nearly Half of Advanced Prostate Cancer Patients with BRCA Mutations.
Rubraca (rucaparib), Clovis Oncology‘s oral PARP inhibitor, shrank tumors in 44% of metastatic hormone-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) patients with BRCA mutations included in the Phase 2 TRITON2 clinical trial. The treatment, which is already approved for ovarian cancer, also reduced PSA levels — a biomarker of prostate cancer — in 51.1% of patients with BRCA mutations. The findings were presented recently at the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress and other meetings by Wassim Abida, a medical oncologist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and principal investigator for the Phase 2 study.
About a quarter of advanced prostate cancers show mutations in BRCA1, BRCA2 or other genes encoding proteins that repair damaged DNA. These tumors are more sensitive to further DNA damage, and often respond well to treatments that block other proteins involved in aiding DNA repair. The PARP enzymes are more involved when BRCA proteins are not functioning properly, and PARP inhibitors have shown great promise in breast and ovarian cancer patients with BRCA mutations. Now, data from the TRITON2 Phase 2 trial (NCT02952534) shows that Rubraca also is effective in prostate cancer patients with such mutations.
The Phase 2 trial is testing the efficacy and safety of Rubraca (600 mg twice a day) in 85 mCRPC patients who have inherited or acquired BRCA mutations, or in one of the 13 DNA repair genes known to increase susceptibility to PARP inhibitors, and who were already treated with androgen receptor-directed therapy (e.g. Xtandi or Zytiga) and taxane-based chemotherapy (e.g. taxotere). Depending on their disease and mutation status, patients were divided in three groups: those with BRCA or ATM mutations and with measurable disease; those with BRCA or ATM mutations without measurable disease; and, those with mutations in other DNA repair genes, with or without measurable disease. The primary goal of the study is to determine the proportion of patients with measureable disease who respond to Rubraca, and those without measureable disease who achieve a significant lowering of their PSA levels. Secondary measures include duration of response, time to disease progression or death, overall survival and safety measures.
After a median follow-up of 5.7 months, 46 out of 85 patients were evaluable for responses. Among the 25 patients with BRCA mutations, 44% had seen their tumor shrink, after only a median of 3.7 months on treatment. At the time of the analysis, more than half of patients were still responding to Rubraca. The results also showed that 51.1% of patients with BRCA mutations saw a reduction in their PSA levels. The most common adverse events were fatigue, nausea, anemia, and constipation. Five patients discontinued Rubraca due to a treatment-related adverse effect, and one patient died of disease progression.
Enrollment in TRITON2 is ongoing. The trial expects to evaluate about 160 patients from at least 100 worldwide locations, and to study other mutations besides BRCA1/2.
Findings from the trial have led the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to grant breakthrough therapy designation to Rubraca as a treatment for mCRPC patients with BRCA mutations, earlier this month.This FDA designation is given to speed the development of medications that might treat serious conditions and potentially provide an improvement on available therapies. It has now been shown that PARP inhibitors are a validated therapeutic class in oncology in multiple tumor types, and these new data underscore the benefit that Rubraca may provide for men with advanced, BRCA-mutant castration-resistant prostate cancer.
This information represents a compilation of two articles published in the 10/24/18 Prostate Cancer News Today.
As Christians, Do We Believe That Jesus Can Do What He Has Promised?
Today I awaited the result of my next test for prostate-specific antigen, better known as PSA. In the past, this wait has many times been accompanied by some degree of anxiety. But this time, I had purposed in my heart and mind to release the outcome to the Lord’s care whatever the result may be. Which reminded me of a recent devotional from Dr. David Jeremiah entitled “I Didn’t Know”. It focused on the familiar story of Jesus’ disciples being in a boat and encountering a storm.
During the three years the disciples spent with Jesus, they had personally witness Him multiply five loaves and two fish to feed thousands, heal the sick and lame, cast out evil spirits and even raise the dead. Many times the disciples seemed to say “I didn’t know He could do that”. Another thing they didn’t know was that Jesus could walk on water – and allow them to do the same. In this instance, during a vicious storm, they spotted Jesus walking on the water toward them. Peter boldly said, “Lord, if it is You, bid me to come to You on the water.” (Matt: 14:28) I recently read that the word “if” could better be translated by the word “since“. The word “if” can sometimes carry with it some degree of uncertainty. But the term “since Jesus said it,” implies a higher degree of trust. Jesus implored Peter to come but he began to sink in the waves when he took his eyes off of Jesus. However, Matthew 14:31, records “and immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught Peter and said to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?'”
Life with Jesus is a never-ending discovery of His love and power if only we will trust Him. If we practice the commands to “trust and obey”, a beautiful cycle begins. According to Dr. Charles Stanley, “trusting the Lord makes obedience easier, and obedience produces ever-increasing trust.” Perhaps we may have never trusted God completely for unusual needs, medical or otherwise. May we explore, trust and discover life with a miracle-working Lord who can deliver what He has promised. Remember the words of this familiar hymn. “Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, just to take Him at His Word. Just to rest upon His promise, just to know “thus saith the Lord.” To start a personal relationship with God, see the following link. By the way, my own test result came back as good as I could have hoped for.
Can God Use Our Prostate Cancer? Yes He Can!!!
As I write this post, it constitutes the 1,000,000+ hit on this website which I can only trust has been a help and a blessing to some of you since I was prompted to share my personal story via a blog.
As I write it, it has been 23 years since I was first diagnosed with prostate cancer. While I am classified as having advanced disease, I am asymptomatic, am feeling well and my PSA is undetectable. But there will probably come a day when I will have to read my own website admonitions and apply them to my own life. Can God use my (our) disease to glorify Him? Emphatically, Yes!
What has God told me to do about my condition? The answers are three-fold: a) to yield it to Him; b) to trust Him completely in what He has told me in His Word, and, c) be cognizant of any opportunity to share my story with others that regardless of any outcome, God is to be glorified. In the Old Testament, the prophet Elijah was alone told by God to confront the hundreds of prophets of the false god Baal, whom many of the Israelites had been worshipping as instructed by the evil King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. First, Baal’s prophets placed a sacrificial ox on an altar and in a vain attempt to induce Baal to ignite the sacrifice, they invoked the name of their god to the point of yelling, and cutting themselves for hours to no avail. It now was Elijah’s turn and he went several steps further. He put his ox on a stone altar, made a trench around it, put wood on top of the altar, laid the ox on the wood, poured several pitchers of water on the ox and saturated the wood around it. He did the latter not once but three times. Then he filled the surrounding trench with water. The goal was of course to ignite the burnt offering as a sacrifice to God. Then interestingly enough, Elijah did not pray the obvious prayer namely for fire to come down and ignite the offering which is what one might expect to pray. He merely prayed, “O Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel (Jacob), let it be known that You are God in Israel and that I am your servant and that I have done all these things at Thy word. Answer me, O’ Lord, answer me that this people may know that You O’ Lord are God and that You would turn their heart back again.” (I Kings 18: 36-37). Notice that Elijah did not pray specifically for fire to fall. But it did, spontaneously consuming the offering, the wood, the stones, the dust and licked up all the water in the trench.
How does this relate to offering my prostate cancer? Like Elijah used a sacrificial ox to demonstrate God’s power, I am to lay my body down as an offering according to Romans 12:1 which states “I beseech you therefore, by the mercies of God to present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God which is your reasonable service of worship.” I should then be attentive to whatever circumstance I would find myself where my personal disease sacrifice could be viewed by others including any medical personnel. While it is normal to do so, I should not pray that God would heal my disease according to my plans and scenario. Remember Elijah did not pray for God to send fire and devour the animal sacrifice. But instead, I should pray like Elijah, listen and follow whatever God has told me, and pray that God would somehow demonstrate His presence and power through my disease and thereby be glorifed. Then step back and leave the results to Him.
Jesus Himself made a similar prayer in John 12:23-28. He knew He would soon undergo a painful death by crucifixion and be totally cut off from God, His Father and bear the penalty of the sins of everyone who ever lived and would ever live. Jesus demonstrated His humanity by saying in v. 27, “Now my soul has become troubled and what shall I say, ‘Father save me from this hour?'” In other words, He asked God if He could be spared all this pain and suffering? But then like Elijah, He concludes “But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Thy Name.'” Like Elijah and Jesus, may the same be said of us. God can indeed be glorified through our disease state. If you, the reader, cannot identify clearly with this scenario, you too can have an intimate and personal relationship with God much like Elijah. See the following link.
Thank you all for putting this site over the millonth mark.