This is my serialized story of hiking the Mountains-to-Sea Trail (MST), a 1,175-mile route that crosses the state of North Carolina. I’m hiking west from Jockey’s Ridge near Nags Head on the Outer Banks of the Atlantic Ocean to Kuwohi (formerly Clingmans Dome) near the Tennessee border in the Great Smoky Mountains. If you’d like to start at the beginning of my story, click here.

See the Mountains-to-Sea map at the bottom for reference.

I have this witch doctor, or, should I say, healer. My daughter, Helen, has me in her sights and is recommending a basket of supplements, juices, and vegetables to fight my prostate cancer. Supplements, she suggests, include vitamins B-complex and D3, iron bisglycinate, curcumin phytosome, men’s probiotic, turkey tail mushroom, resveratrol, saw palmetto, pomegranate, zinc, black cumin seed oil, and rosemary extract—all of which I take daily. In addition, I’m suppossed to drink a glass of tomato sauce as well as pomegranate and cranberry juice, and, on top of that, every day I’m reminded to munch on pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, and a head of broccoli.

Given all this, if I am not back to full health and hiking—continuing my adventure on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail—It’s because I’ve choked to death devouring the plethora of pills handed out as alternative medicine.

Helen’s active engagement is in direct response to a pathologist’s assessment that removing my prostate in February didn’t eliminate all the cancer cells in my body. From an elevated PSA blood test I took in early June, this appears to be the case.

Normally, I’ve read, such a recurrence doesn’t happen for three or more years, so to see an elevated PSA test three months after surgery is definitely concerning.

Consequently, my surgeon recommends I get a PET scan right away to determine if the cancer has spread to my lymph nodes, vesicles, or pelvic bones. This test involves drinking a radioactive glucose-like solution, then lying in a tubular machine for over an hour as it takes hundreds of pictures of my innards, which, I am told, will light up where cancer cells are snacking.

That afternoon, after the test, I drive home wondering if this is the beginning of the end. Just like coming so close to completing the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, was I now on my last proverbial life “hike”?

Five days later I receive my PET scan results and, much to my amazement, the report indicates that the cancer cells have not metastasized in my body. In fact, it shows no signs of cancer at all.

Still, from the pathologist’s report back in February and the PSA in June, clearly a small amount of the fiendish devils remain huddled in my body.

My wife Karen and I meet with the radiation team at the Duke Cancer Center for their assessment of my situation a week later. We speak for nearly forty minutes with Dr. Jeng, a senior resident in the radiation department. Dr. Jeng, is nice, knowledgeable, and certain we should follow up on the surgery with a plan of radiation treatment.

Jeng suggests we radiate the entire pelvic area to kill off the little buggers.

We can hear Dr. Fecteau, my radiation oncologist, talking with Jeng for a few minutes outside our examination room before he joins us. Fecteau is more of a heavy-set, rugby player-type-of-doctor and says he agrees with Dr. Jeng’s suggestion for my next course of action.

However, this recommendation, just three months after surgery, comes as a bit of a shock to me and I want—no need—time to consider my options.

In truth, by going ahead with the surgery back in February, I thought I would be avoiding radiation and the hormone therapy that accompanies it. Now, here it is being proposed as the normal next step in eradicating my cancer—just like “Of course, you would get radiation and hormone therapy, given your numbers.”—and, just like so many other men who have had the surgery and discover afterward—almost by default—of course, you are committed to the other two prongs of treatment.

Still, the reported side effects of radiation and hormone therapy in study after study are devastating—urinary and bowel problems, damage to surrounding organs, fatigue, hot flashes, loss of bone density, weight gain, joint pain, and possible cardio-metabolic consequences (i.e., diabetes, coronary disease, etc.).

Who would want the surgery knowing that down the road this would be your fate?

In reality, I don’t want to change the quality of my life based on a pathologist’s report in February and only one PSA test from early June.

The PET scan is my line of defense. With no sign of metastatic cancer in my body, I want to know if it is possible to hold off on the radiation for three months to see if my PSA continues to climb, stays the same, or even—miracles of miracles—falls!

I can see Fecteau is reluctant to agree but he says he understands my reasoning.

As my next PSA test is already scheduled for early September, Fecteau suggests I go ahead and have an MRI of the area where my prostate has been removed—the MRI providing a more precise picture of the surrounding soft tissue. Also, in the meantime, I can meet with the medical oncologist who handles hormone treatments to answer the questions I have regarding the lethal drugs proposed.

Sitting in the examination room with Karen listening to Fecteau suggest these additional components to the idea of “waiting,” I realize, like a brick hitting me on the head, that he has seen hundreds of men like me and could, with near certainty, tell me exactly how my situation will play out. Based on my data and the number of men he sees, he might even tell me how long I will live if, indeed, push comes to shove.

So, when I ask him what he would do in the meanwhile if he were me waiting for my next PSA test, he immediately speaks up. “Get stronger!” he says—implying, the months ahead are going to be brutal.

“Would hiking in the Smoky Mountains on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail be a way to do that?” I ask innocently enough.

He said laughs and says, “Yes, that would do nicely.”

Okay, then! This period of waiting for more tests will be my window to get the MST completed. Let the count-down clock begin.

I immediately begin planning to hike the remaining three segments of the MST available to me in western North Carolina. All three segments will need to be completed before my “worst case” medical treatment starts up this fall—before the side effects of radiation and hormone therapy change my life forever.

I read in the MST literature that Segments One and Two of the trail are now open to thru-hikers, and, though Segment Three is still closed due to the damage from Hurricane Helene, Segment Four is almost 90% open, and, I have been told, might even be completely open by early fall. How early, I wonder?

I contact my friend Ginger who hiked with me on my previous outing nearly a year ago and ask if she would like to join me hiking east from Kuwohi in late July—the two of us tackling the forty-six miles of Segment One, which extends from Kuwohi, the mountain where the MST ends at the Tennessee border, to Waterrock Knob, the start of Segment Two.

Ginger agrees right away to accompany me on the three-night/four-day hike.

I am truly blessed!

Ginger is in her mid- to late-fifties and in great shape. I work out with Ginger at my gym, and I know I’ll struggle to keep up with her. Perhaps, though, that’s a good way to crunch down the cancer before the PSA test in September.

Since my window to tackle these segments is so tiny and I only have a few weeks to get prepared, I decide, in addition to going to my fitness gym every morning, to add a daily evening walk consisting of three- to five-miles through my neighborhood.

I notice right away I start to lose weight and can feel my body tightening into thru-hiking shape.

What I don’t realize, I am also wearing out my seventy year-old joints.

In early July, while running at the gym, I suddenly feel a pop on the right side of my left knee and immediately come to a stop as pain shoots up my leg.

Oh no!

I know immediately that I have heard this pop before, back when I was hiking around Pilot Mountain on Segment Six of the MST. From what I remember, it took several weeks for the knee to heal and the pain to go away.

Given my timeline this is a disaster!

My window will shut completely if my knee doesn’t improve immediately.

Now I’m limping around with a cane knowing prostate cancer cells are jumping for joy every which way in my core, knowing Ginger, my in-shape, tough-as-nails hiking companion, has agreed to take a week off from work to be with me, and knowing a medical clock is relentlessly pushing ahead to end my wonderful hiking life.

The tick, tick, tick of freedom is way too short.

How did time get so compressed?

Tell the witch doctor to forget the supplements and all those heads of broccoli, it’s time for the miracle cure of psilocybin and peyote buttons. I want to float away.

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Mountains-to-Sea Trail. I am now planning to do a “flip flop” on the trail due to the impact of Hurricane Helene. This narrative discusses hiking Segment 1B, working my way East to Segment Four.