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SIUSLAW NEWS ❚ WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2018
U S TOO P ROSTATE C ANCER S UPPORT —
‘By the way, you have prostate cancer’ Part II
received a double lung
transplant in June 2017.
During the long journey to
receiving the gift of life from
my donor, I was diagnosed with
prostate cancer. My only option
was to undergo radiation thera-
py. The process started in
October 2017 with a consulta-
tion with Dr. Kevin Forsythe,
the radiation oncologist at the
Oregon Urology Institute
Radiation center in Eugene.
After my visit at OUI, I was
scheduled for a simulated CT
scan where a foam block was
vacuum formed to my legs for
positioning on the radiation
machine.
The Image-Guided Radiation
Therapy, IGRT, consisted of 45
treatments done Monday
through Friday for about nine
weeks. Each day, I boarded the
Friends of Florence bus at
Peace Harbor Medical Center.
It left Florence at 8 a.m. and
I
B Y M ARK W ETZEL
CANCER SURVIVOR
Following is part of a series
of true personal stories about
men’s experience with prostate
cancer. These men tell their sto-
ries with the hope that they will
help someone else traveling the
same road.
arrived at the OUI radiation
center at about 9:30 a.m. OUI
scheduled the bus riders as a
group.
When Stacie called my
name, I changed into a luxuri-
ous robe and went into the radi-
ation room. I took off my robe
and the radiation staff, Lewis,
Juma and Patrick, got me on
the table in front of the large
Varian machine. They posi-
tioned me, and the radiation
head rotated to take a CT scan.
The machine then adjusted the
table for precise alignment.
The radiation head then
rotated to the first position,
adjusted lead and tungsten fin-
gers to focus the beam, and
then “fired” the x-ray gun. Each
shot lasted for about 12 to 18
seconds. The head rotated to
the next position and another
dose of radiation was delivered.
This was repeated for seven
positions to concentrate the
S IUSLAW V ALLEY F IRE & R ESCUE —
C
B Y P ETE “B OA ” W ARREN
Special to Siuslaw News
N OTES
FROM THE
B ARRY S OMMER
Special to Siuslaw News
T
hances are, you probably
know a firefighter. Let’s
just say they are a bit
different than average folks. If
you’re someone who hangs out
with one or more firefighters,
you may have noticed they have
tendencies to say or do things
the average person doesn’t.
Ever notice what firefighters
wear or what’s in their dresser
drawers?
Yep, tons of firefighter shirts
because they’re inherently
he water rises, the water
falls. The tides come
and they go, bringing
estuarial life one minute, and
then taking back into its salty
embrace what it willingly gives
twice a day.
Without Isaac Newton we
wouldn’t know what tides were
or how they worked.
The scientist in him
described the effect as “The
Law of Universal Gravitation”
which sounds good in a disser-
tation thesis but means diddly
to the regular person. So he put
it in simpler terms: “The gravi-
tational attraction between two
bodies is directly proportional
to the product of their masses,
and inversely proportional to
the square of the distance
between the bodies”
Okay, so maybe Newton did-
n’t care about the salty embrace
of estuarial tidal life, but he did
know how to be a ground
breaking but boring scientist.
I’m not trained in science and
won’t take anything away from
his work and research, but I
would still prefer watching the
old pilings by the bridge being
inundated twice a day by the
mixing waters of the Pacific
and the Siuslaw than re-read his
monumental science tome
“Philosophiæ
Naturalis
Principia Mathematica.”
Well, maybe if it came out as
a Readers Digest condensed
version…
Even as science was explain-
ing the why and how of tides,
the movement of water tied to
the moon and attempts to
explain it have always been
grounded in the mystical, the
magical and the mythical.
Most civilizations had their
gods and goddesses connected
to water and the moon.
Ancient Greece had Selene,
Hecate and Artemis, Rome
gave us Diana, Sina was in
Polynesia and, my favorite, the
Inuit deity Alignak. The Inuit
knew how to make their gods
and goddesses entities to be
reckoned with, as Alignak was
not only in charge of tides but
earthquakes, the weather and
eclipses.
Pay no attention to the story
that he was incestuous with his
sister Yolkai and thus banished
from earth (no mention of who
banished them) where he
became god of the moon and
the tides while sister Yolkai
became the goddess of the sun
— just be fearful of what he
can do once moved to action.
If you’re an Inuit, that is.
For all the good the moon
does, there is a dark side. It is
believed by some that the influ-
ence of the moon on humans
(and animals) is less benign and
more malevolent. The term
lunatic is not just the invective
thrown at Uncle Dwayne dur-
ing Thanksgiving supper when
he goes on about some conspir-
acy involving the Russians and
out of work circus clowns in
the vodka and tricycle business.
Its roots as a moniker for the
less than sane are embedded in
ancient legend and lore, origi-
nally middle English/French
late Latin in origin and used to
connect the movement of the
moon to certain unacceptable
behaviors.
It used to be that acting out
when the moon was full was a
guaranteed meeting with the
therapist’s couch (or the torch
and pitchfork crowd.)
Today, it’s just another
quirky behavior that garners the
response, “Well bless your
heart.”
Beyond the magic and sci-
wonderful people on the bus
and we had a great time on the
trips to and from Eugene and
Springfield. For a while I was
the lone liberal, tree hugger. We
exchanged good-spirited banter
and had many moments of
laughter and good conversation.
If only the U.S. Congress could
ride the bus.
The Florence Us TOO chap-
ter support has been very help-
ful during and after treatment.
With our discussions at the
monthly meetings, my treat-
ment experience had no surpris-
es. We help each other, and
men newly diagnosed with
prostate cancer, to make critical
decisions about which treatment
to pursue. As always, Dr.
Mehlhaff is an invaluable
resource.
Now, I wait until April to see
if my Prostate Specific Antigen,
PSA, is at the undetectable
level near zero.
like to drive a water tanker;
they’ll tell you it’s a water ten-
der.
Tankers have wings and are
flown to disperse water over
fires from the air; tenders are
giant water trucks used for
refilling fire engines known as
“pumpers.”
And don’t even think of call-
ing out, “Look at that fire
truck!”
You’ll quickly be corrected.
“That’s not a truck, it’s an
engine.”
And when checking into a
hotel, going to a convention site
or even a department store,
chances are your fighter friend
has likely already checked out
the egress of the building in
case of an emergency.
Finally, if you’re in the pres-
ence of, or on a date with, a fire-
fighter when they are suddenly
tapped out to respond to an
emergency, don’t take it person-
ally if they abruptly leave you.
They are going because it’s
what they do.
That being said, depending
on how the date is going, they
may have triggered their emer-
gency pager on purpose for a
quick egress!
______________________
Pete “Boa” Warren can be
contacted at 541-997-3212,
or the main SVFR station,
2625 Highway 101, or email
Boa@svfr.org.
The ebb and flow
ence, the rhythmic ebb and
flow of salt with fresh water
has its impression on all of us
who live, visit and work close
to the shore. Some say the
release of negative ions as the
water crashes into itself has a
calming and soothing effect on
the soul and psyche.
Others credit the quiet but
constant background sound of
the water moving as the elixir
of stress relief.
Still others say the grand
scheme of nature which
includes the rise and fall as well
as birds, fish, fishermen and
wind all contribute to what is
inarguably an amazing dance of
life.
Despite the tides coming and
going when you least expect
them to, with a timetable in
hand one can enjoy this
carousel of life and rhythm
even at 3:17 in the A.M.
Not me, but for someone
else, (perhaps with a case of
insomnia), this might be the
ticket for a good sleep.
In order to get the full effects
and enjoy all the benefits of the
changing tides, anywhere in
Old Town will provide good
access to watch. Since the
bridge and its surrounds have
remnants of the old timber days
sticking up out of the sand, any-
place works to observe the slow
rise of water, the pilings being
covered (as they have been for
decades) and the change of
wildfowl as they adapt to the
temporary water change.
Plants get covered, grass
inundated, new small coves and
sand spits appear and the bay
takes on a different feeling. The
liquid letter “V” is created as
the water flows around the pil-
ings, giving the impression of a
flight of birds, the ironic twist
being the seagull sitting on the
top of a tall piling, looking
down as if watching an imagi-
nary flock passing below.
Then the tide reverses and
the patterns shift, water again
seeking the open ocean and tak-
ing with it its half of the life
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F ACEBOOK . COM /S IUSLAW N EWS
urinate. These symptoms sub-
sided post treatment after a few
weeks. The most annoying
issue was the effect of the six-
month Lupron shots; frequent
“hot flashes.”
I met nice men and women
on the bus and at OUI undergo-
ing radiation treatment. We
shared our histories and experi-
ences with cancer. For most of
us, radiation therapy was, at
most, an interruption to our
daily lives. A few men had
more intense side effects, such
as frequently getting up at night
to pee or difficulty in urinating.
IGRT is designed to deliver
each dose of radiation with pin-
point accuracy to maximize
healing and minimize damage
to surrounding tissue.
The Friends of Florence Bus
is a unique and invaluable serv-
ice to our community. The vol-
unteer drivers, coordinators and
trainers do a fantastic job. I met
Firefighters are a little different
proud of their station or position
within the department.
When dining with a firefight-
er, you’ll notice they are always
the first ones to finish eating
because they tend to eat quickly.
That’s because eating hot
food is so much better than
reheating it, which happens
quite often as a result of dinner-
or lunch-time tap outs to emer-
gencies.
While on the West Coast,
don’t ask a firefighter what it’s
S ILTCOOS —
beam on the prostate while
minimizing damage to sur-
rounding tissue. The actual
radiation treatment took about
two minutes.
Once treatment was com-
plete, I changed into my clothes
and returned my robe to an
assigned cubby hole. The next
patient was called in. After the
last Florence patient was treat-
ed, we boarded the bus and
returned to Peace Harbor by
about 12:30 p.m. Every week I
met with the nurse, Lori, for
vitals and then with Dr.
Forsythe to review my status
and to discuss any new symp-
toms and to answer questions.
The OUI staff was great and
made the therapy experience
relaxing and easy.
For me, side effects of the
radiation were minimal. I did
develop an urgency to go to the
bathroom and needed to get up
in the middle of the night to
and spirit, leaving the bay and
river wanting and the seagull
very confused.
The tide comes in, the tide
goes out. Fresh mixes with
salty and life flourishes.
And as I watch the dance, the
words of Warren Buffet echo
across the Siuslaw…
“It’s only when the tide goes
out that you discover who’s
been swimming naked.”
Thank goodness there’s no
lights on at 3:17 in the morn-
ing.
Recipe
Siuslaw News
COLLECTION
2018
Siuslaw News has been the region’s newspaper for 128 years. In that time,
restaurants have come and gone, trades have shift ed and the area’s demographics
have changed, but the area’s taste for fresh seafood, locally grown produce and
handcraft ed meals remains. In 2018, Siuslaw News wants to showcase some of
those recipes in a new collection.
Th is is a chance for community members to submit recipes for entrées, ap-
petizers, soups, cocktails, side dishes and more. People are encouraged to share
recipes of their favorite local and regional cuisine, recipes handed down from
family, the best use of seasonal produce and even tips on where to fi nd foraged
foods. Businesses and restaurants may also submit their famous or unforgettable
recipes.
Once complete, this bound collection will be available for sale
at the Siuslaw News.
Submit your recipes online at
thesiuslawnews.com/recipe-collection/
or
mail a copy to PO Box 10 Florence OR 97439 Attn: Siuslaw Cook Book
Fax 541-997-7979
Deadline is March 12th
Siuslaw News
541-997-3441 • 148 Maple St. • P.O. Box 10 Florence, OR 97349
thesiuslawnews.com