Remembering September 11

Alan Jackson said it best, I was "teaching a class full of innocent children". My co-worker's husband was at the Pentagon and called her to say he was okay before the phone systems went down. One of my children was at Dulles airport; the other in downtown D.C. It was late evening before we could get in touch with them. Everyone's world changed that day, and it is a day I will always remember where I was and what I was doing just like the day JFK was shot and the day the Challenger exploded in mid-air. The images of September 11 are instantly retrieved with just someone mentioning the date.

DYank, right on with Alan Jackson's "Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPHnadJ-0hE

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57 yrs old, excellent health - DX'd with PCa July '12
PSA 5.8
Biopsy 6/27/12
9 of 12 Gleason: 3+3 and 3+4 (All neg PNI)
Negative DRE’s / NO / MO / T1C / Gland size 40gm / Vol. 22gm
Volume Study 8/14/12
Casodex 50mg daily 5 wks prior 2 wks post BT
LDR BT 9/21/12 – no issues, No SE's
3 mo PSA 12/20 0.48!
6 mo PSA 3/14 0.21!
9 mo PSA 6/18/13 0.30!
1 yr PSA 9/25/13 0.30!
18 mo PSA 3/25/14 0.30!

Post Edited (A Yooper) : 9/11/2014 8:14:38 AM (GMT-6)

Prostate cancer is considered one of the diseases that have occurred in 9-11 first responders that are thought to have a causal link to that attack:

www.nydailynews.com/news/national/add-prostate-cancer-wtc-woes-article-1.1460469

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Age: 68
Chronic prostatitis (age 60 on)
BPH w/ urinary obstruction, 6/2011
TURP, 7/2011
Ongoing high PSA, 7/2011-12/2011
Biopsy, 12/2011: positive 3/12 (90%, 70%, 5%)
Gleason 6(3+3), T1c
No mets, PCa likely still organ contained
IMRT w/ HT (Lupron), 4/2012-6/2012
PSAs (2012): <0.1
PSAs (2013): <0.1
PSA Apr.'14: <0.1

Well I'll ad my personal irony. I am posting on a UA flight right now from Houston to my home town Las Vegas. I already flew earlier from Shreveport to Houston. The plane I am on, when I boarded in Houston was experiencing vapors from the HVAC while at the gate. This due to hi humidity in Houston...

Just eerie I guess. Flying on 9/11 and all. But we're safely in the air. I was thinking about it for some reason. Just in the back of the mind and flying on this date.

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BioSketch tinyurl.com/mw36q72

I was on duty that morning here in the Detroit area. The morning was busy. My partner and I had rushed by the station to resupply when he noticed the TV showing the World Trade Center Towers with smoke billowing out of one and a plane striking the other. His comment was, hmm... the Trade Center. For a brief second we thought it was a movie. Being from NJ, Shawn (my partner) stopped, looked, realized it wasn't a movie, and then went into a panic as his parents are just a short distance from the WTC. He immediately began a flurry of calls in an attempt to reach his parents. It took most of the day before he made contact to find out they were safe. They hadn't made it to the city before being turned around on their way to work.

Just about the time we saw on TV what was happening, dispatch ordered all crews to report to the closest station for emergency stocking (meaning extra) of medical and other emergency supplies. All crews were placed on severe (red) alert. Rescue crews were sent to posts and kept ready for immediate response if needed. For the next two weeks crews were kept on red alert before it was downgraded to orange. If there wasn't a 911 emergency we were on a corner 24/7. The Detroit area remained oh high alert for months. Though the tragedy didn't happen here, it touched so close to home for the people in EMS, here and everywhere. It still does.

As part of a National Disaster Plan it is common for EMS agencies to send out multiple, rotating crews to sites to assist with whatever is needed. Just as with Katrina, many of my colleagues were sent while the rest of us stayed behind to help cover their shifts for next several weeks. The hours were long but the need was great. Every man, woman, and child did what they could all across the Nation during one of the most tragic events of our time in my opinion. Every donation, every prayer, every volunteered moment mattered. We truly are a Great Nation made up of Great People

I was working for a company that made mobile data systems that were installed in police cars and fire trucks. I'd dropped my Nissan 200SX at the garage that morning to have the clutch replaced and had a buddy from work pick me up and drive me to the office. As the planes hit the towers we all watched for an hour or two on a jury-rigged TV with a wire antenna out the office window. Our VP arrived at the office and sent everyone home. I was the odd man out. My car wouldn't be ready until 4:00 or so. So I hung out at the office and then walked the 3 miles to the garage to get my car and go home and watch it all over again all night on TV with my wife.

I later did a trip to NY to set up and demo our police mobile data systems. My fellow sales engineer who set up and demonstrated the fire management software, was a former FDNY captain, who had retired just a year or so before 9/11. He and I went to dinner in a pub near Times Square. And then he drove me down to the hole in the ground that had been the twin towers. He'd lost more than 40 NY firefighters there on 9/11 who he had personally known.

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Age 68
-DX March 2002 - PSA 9.4, 5 of 10 cores positive - 30-50%.
-RP April 2002. PT3B N0 MX Gleason=7 (3+4), 75% left lobe; small focus right lobe.
-Post-surgery PSA low of 0.01; slow rise to 0.4 (August 2009).
-SRT Jan/Feb 2010. Enlarged lymph node near prostate bed targeted. Casodex 3 months during SRT
-PSA 0.00 Apr 2013; <0.02 Sep 2013 (new lab); Apr 2014 0.00

It was the beginning of a typical morning here in Idaho for my family. I was up and turned on the news just after the first plane bombed the WTC. I remember screaming for my husband and son...didn't want my son to go to school that day but he insisted...teenagers want to be with each other. I will never forget.

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Husband Frank, age 59
9/10/13 PSA 9.2 tested at GP, follow-up appt. w/urologist, his opinion retest 3-4 months
1/13/14 PSA 15.8
1/30/14 BX G4+4, changed to 4+5
2/14 CT Scan negative, relook 2/20/14 mets
2/20/14 Bone Scan 2/25/14 Bone Biopsy
2/27/14 T1cNXM1b or Stage IV D2
3/4/14PSA 17.4 Began bicalutamide 3/18/14 Eligard/Zometa
7/14 PSA 2.0 T=37

At the time, I was the head of Clinical Support Services for a large metropolitan blood bank that supplied blood for transfusion to 70 hospitals and clinics. At most donation centers, we had people lined up around the block to donate blood that day. Of course, little blood was needed in New York because few survived.

The irony is that only a handful of the hundreds that showed up to donate blood that day ever came back to donate blood again for the ordinary blood transfusion needs of the community. Within a few weeks of 9/11 we were back to begging people to come in to donate. A transplant surgery can eat up as much as 40 or 50 units of blood.

My father, a WWII pilot, brought me in with him to donate blood at the Red Cross when I was in college. I've never stopped donating ever since, except when I got deferred for a year after surgery for prostate cancer in 2006.

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Diagnosed G6 at age 56
Prostatectomy 2006
PSA's <0.05

I was at work in the operation for American Airlines, when one of my employees informed me about the first plane crash. I had a few friend on each flight, two crewmembers and one retired AA pilot. That was a very bad day/week/year/lifetime for me. I cried myself to sleep for a week, while dragging myself to work each day to help put the airline back together. Not a day goes by that I do not think about it and sometimes, shed a tear, even now. I started flying a flag at my house that day and have not stopped since.
Thanks for remembering
Roy

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June 2013 diagnosed with PCa at age 65, now 66.
PSA 5.3
12 biopsy samples taken (6 benign, 3 G 3+3=6, 2 G 4+3=7 and 1 G 3+4=7. Stage T1C
Da Vinci robot, August 2013. Spared 90 + percent of nerves.
Pathology report:
Margins negative
Organ confined
Seminal vesicles negative
Lymph Nodes clear
Downgrd Gleason from 4+3=7 to 3+4=7
3 Mth PSA <0.01
6 Mth <0.01
Dry, but still working on ED