K
KathyC
Guest
Saw the neurologist & after many months we now know why DH has suffered extreme weakness & stiffness from the waist down making it so difficult for him to walk. He has stenosis in the lower spine (a narrowing in the spinal column) which is pinching the nerves! This stenosis, however, has absolutely nothing to do with the lesions on his spine & elsewhere in his body. The oncologist said he thought we had more than 1 thing going on here & he was right. So DH will start physicasl therapy & continue with anti-inflammatory drugs & hopefully the walking will get better; don't think they want to do any surgery unless absolutely necessary due to the unknown lesions on the spine. The neurologist says it looks like prostate cancer that has spread to the spine but of course all the tests say no--says he has never seen anything like it. He is working with our oncologist & internist & said they are also consulting with other specialists to figure it out. He said that sometimes people develop "cancer markers" in other words, pre-cancerous areas that develop 2 to 5 yrs BEFORE the actual cancer so he said that are going to start checking that possibility out further. However, at this point in time, other than the narrowing of the spine & of course the unknown lesions, DH is in excellent health & actually feels good if he could just walk without feeling so weak. Neurologist didn't say anything negative about the orthopedic dr but seemed shocked that the dr made NO attempt to address the walking issue--oncologist gave us the same reaction when he asked what ortho was doing about the walking issue; I think once the ortho saw the lesions (this was over 3 mo ago) he said to himself the guy has stage 4 cancer of the spine so why bother. For now, we count our blessings and hopefully with therapy & meds the walking problem will get better. At this point it is a relief to at least get 1 problem addressed and treatment started while a whole bunch of drs keep a watchful eye on the other problem. I continue to watch for updates on Elliot and the triplets and truly hope that they can continue with some good reports; it happened to us, just a few months ago we were searching for the primary source of DH stage 4 cancer & now it really doesn't look like cancer.