We last left our hero and his urologist lamenting about the VA protocol requiring a bone scan prior to authorizing a PSMA PET scan to try to determine the location of his growing cancer…

Well, things fell into place a little quicker than I expected. I had my bone scan on Monday, 8 January 2024. As expected, the results were:

No abnormal uptake of tracer is seen to suggest osseous metastatic disease.

That’s a good thing. At least it didn’t light up like a Broadway marquee showing metastases everywhere.

I have a follow-up with the urologist on 13 February, and I’ll have another PSA test done in advance of that meeting. The only thing that’s unclear to me is the scheduling of the PSMA PET scan, so I just emailed the urologist to clarify.

In his notes from our December meeting, his plan was to do the “Bone scan and PSMA PET; Follow-up in 6 weeks; and PSA test in advance of the follow-up.”

I asked if he wanted me to complete the PSMA PET before the February meeting, or if he wanted to review the next PSA result and bone scan results in February before scheduling the PSMA PET scan. Hopefully, I’ll have an answer soon.

I have yet to share the bone scan results with the radiation oncologist. I’ll just wait until we have the PSMA PET scan nailed down before contacting him.

Mentally, I’m doing okay with all of this. I’ve reconciled that this is the path that I’m on, and we’ll just take one step and one test result at a time and go from there. That’s not to say that there aren’t days when I get anxious about the unknown ahead. I do. But I’m getting much better at not dwelling on the fact that this is happening.

Other than that, since my last post, I’ve learned that making homemade tamales is an hours-long labor of love; I made a quick trip to Yosemite at Christmas; I completed another orbit around the sun; I’m on tap for possible jury duty next week; and I have family coming to visit in early February. 2024 is off to a busy start.

Stay tuned for more to come…

This post originally appeared January 11, 2024, on Dan’s Journey Through Prostate Cancer. It is republished with permission.