The novelty of this plight is starting to wear thin!
I first learned of my elevated PSA blood level in early December, it is now early Feb., I'm sick of this (not *FROM* it).
Monday morning Feb. 10th I will check into a local hospital at 6:40am, late for me, I'm usually up for 3 1/2 hours by that time. By 8am I will be under anesthesia and a number of incisions made to allow groping about in my pelvic area with a high-tech gizmo which allows the surgeon to both see and remove various components which the creator intended to remain intact for the duration of this life cycle.
I'm starting to get that "raped" feeling again. Modern science for all of it's ooh's and aah's, doesn't really seem to have a handle on this prostate cancer thing. The more one reads, the more one becomes confused and ready to do *something*, even if it's wrong. The procedure is not without a few risks of it's own. I may suffer swelling of my legs due to the "filter" being gone which purges various areas of the body of excess fluids. Being as my left knee is already a mess, that should be a treat.
Yeah, reality is starting to rear it's ugly head. My understanding is that this pelvic lymph node dissection (PLND) is primarily for diagnostic purposes. The only true diagnosis that it can give is "Mr. Few, I'm sorry, but the cancer has become systemic, and is therefore incurable". If the results are negative, it just means that the cancer *probably* is not systemic. So, for that reason, we proceed. There is a certain morbid curiosity about what it would be like to hear those words, and if it were on the big screen, and not playing out in my own life, I guess it would have some theatric value.
Heavy sigh....but, that's the way the chips fall Hubert, you win some, you lose some. When I get up tomorrow morning I am going to make a conscious effort to regain some of the positive energy I have had until about an hour ago.
This afternoon a young man came up to my front porch, nicely dressed, clutching a bible in his right hand. He proceeded to ask me a number of questions relating to my religious beliefs, and followed with an invitation to his particular church. I began to get that same feeling of violation, and my heart sank. He handed me a pamphlet which asked "Do you know where you will spend eternity?".
Indeed. I would love to tell everyone how I ran him off my property and chased him down the street. That's not what happened, I stood there dumbstruck that people like him breathe the same air as I do. The audacity of one human being pretending to be privy to "secrets" of the universe.
God is the master bio-chemist, psychiatrist, and philosopher all rolled into one. The creation we share is meant to be self sustaining, without brief moments of intervention every time you stub your toe. This is the really scary part of existence as we know it. We are truly alone, each of us to our own most private thoughts.
Yeah, that sounds right.... |
