Huntly

"Life is a banquet, Patrick, and most poor fools are starving to death."  --Auntie Mame

No one has demonstrated that more in my life than has Huntly, my roommate.  We became instant friends the day we met 19 years ago.  In those 19 years together we have terrorized whole continents with our shared celebration of life.  When we thought I was dying of AIDS, Huntly took me on a Grand Tour of Europe, in the Southern tradition.  We did London and Paris, and were scheduled to do Rome right after Venice when I decided on the spur of the moment to detour by way of Germany and say hi to my cousin, Sandy.  In Munich I fell in love.  Instead of Rome, I went to meet my new beloved in Vienna.  I am so glad I did, but that's another story saved for another day.

Huntly has always lived life large, or "too much for color tv" as he likes to say.  We were roommates once, back in 1989 through 1991, although I shouldn't count 1989 because he was in Italy learning to destroy Italian--the language, not the culture.  He left me in charge of "his stuff" and I decided the best way to deal with his stuff was to move it in with me.  After about two years I'd had enough of his shit and decided to live alone.  We'd have grown apart during this time if it weren't for our mutual friend Jimmy.  We stayed close, and when Jimmy died, Huntly flew back from Morocco to help me deal with it.  From then on we have had an intensely close relationship.  Two years ago when I decided to get a roommate and he received notice that his loft was for sale, neither of us hesitated and Huntly moved in with me.

Huntly has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.   For various reasons, they have decided that there is no reason to aggressively go after the cancer.  They're not going to remove his prostate.  They're not going to treat it with radiation nor chemotherapy.  Instead, they're going to chemically castrate him (his words) and deprive the cancer of testosterone, a fuel on which it thrives.  Prostate cancer is notoriously slow growing (usually) and by depriving it of its fuel, one can live quite a long time without additional problems.  The three spots where it has spread will be watched and dealt with separately.

Never having heard of this "harmone therapy," I imagined the absolutely worst-case scenario and have worried a lot more than I should.  At first I thought this was pure bullshit and that he must be so far along that there's no reason to make him suffer the cure if he's going to die anyway.  (I have a strong tendency towards being a "drama queen.")  After reading and talking to others, I've come to the conclusion that, if it works, it is the preferred treatment.  Providing the cancer doesn't spread, you can live long enough that you're more likely to die of other age-related issues and not prostate cancer.  Still, chemical castration sounds awful, even if it's preferable to surgery and radiation. 

Harmone therapy may be physically less impacting than the others, but it is not without a tremendous psychological cost.  Most 71-year-olds probably aren't as sexually active as is Huntly.  He has a stable of boyfriends.  I'm lucky to have a date a couple of times a month.  He has a couple every week.  I hope I grow up to be just like him. 

This is going to be an interesting time.

Comments

[ellen]

I'm so sad that Huntly's body is being assaulted by the Monster. You tell him that, whether he likes it or not, he's in my prayers.

[Wenchy]

I am so sorry to hear that you friend is ill... He sounds like a wonderful and very witty man.. much like you.

Hugz to you sweetcakes.

[jaye]

This is really a bummer.

My father had the radical surgery, removed the prostate, did not do chemo/radiation but did hormone therapy. He is now a 12 year survivor. I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on tv but I would not be happy with cancer in my body. It can spread indeed. Slowly, but why would anyone allow it to?

Second opinion time.

[Peter]

Some news article I read said that just belonging to a community that cares about you improves your prospects for recovering from illness; maybe that's a bit "new age" sounding, but what do you and I lose by believing in it? Tell Huntly I'm thinking good thoughts for him.

[Kathy]

My dad was 79 when they discovered cancer in his prostate. Many felt that he should be treated like Huntly, given his age. Prostate cancer is slow-growing, there was a study done once that showed that something like 75% of men over the age of 80 had it and most wouldn't die from it.

After speaking with many people, my dad ended up having surgery with a really good surgeon at USC. Other doctors seemed to feel that the most feared consequences of surgery (impotence and incontinence) were almost a certainty with him, given his age.

He's a healthy man, and he surprised everyone. Apparently no detectable problems whatsoever, he got rid of the catheter after surgery quicker than most men 30 years younger than him.

After surgery, the doctor told him that in his case, the cancer was about to leave the capsule it was enclosed in, if he'd waited 6 months longer it would have spread to other parts of his body.

I wish Huntly the best, but after his experience I'm strongly prejudiced in favor of at least a serious consultation with a really good surgeon. My dad's surgeon was Lieskowski at USC.

I pray everything will work out for him.