Storm clouds

The numbers take a leap

This is the big conference for cancer research scientists. They’ve asked me to attend.

I felt a jolt of mortality in my latest blood work. Suddenly, after 9 months of lazing upward, my PSA nearly doubled. The number’s still quite low, but doctors worry when PSA rises quickly. So we’ll check the PSA again in 6 weeks, rather than the usual 3 months.

It’s too soon for earnest worry. Cancer is always a horse race.¹ The rise may slack off or even go backward. The number may be a lab goof-up.

I’ll post an update after the next tests.

Time to meet some scientists!

I write a second Substack I’ve pitched as “Popular Science meets prostate cancer,” but, honestly, it’s a cancer appreciation blog. If you don’t know how sophisticated cancer is, you’re missing half the fun of having cancer.

In the blog, I can write up a cell biology scenario as if it were a Severance plot; it’s hard to believe we know so many details of molecular behavior without being able to see most molecules. It’s a feat of brilliant indirection, years of work, fearlessness, and scrupulous care.

I’ll have a chance to say hello to cancer researchers soon. The American Association for Cancer Research has invited me and several other patients to join them late next month at their annual convention in Chicago, as part of the AACR’s Scientist-Survivor Program. I’m not sure yet what to expect, but it will certainly include face time with scientists and fellow survivors.² Few are chosen for this program, and I’m proud to be one of them.

I’ll report on the experience once I’m back.

1. Who the horse is depends which side you’re playing on.

2. I call myself a “cancer patient,” but people like the hopeful sound of “survivor.”