Visited BorgHealth this afternoon for the periodic check on the nuclear power nodes.  Gotta make certain the containment field keeping the mutating mutinous cells that tried to take over the world from their 70s-retro Headquarters in my prostate is still working.  I was expecting the anti-drone, my really cool urologist, to break out the big probe.  At least slap some lube and latex around and see what’s going on behind the radioactive seeds that keep humanity safe.  Instead we talked about my bloodwork, talked about BorgHealth’s new computers, talked about holiday travel, talked about the choice back in 2003 of surgery versus radiation, talked about the impact of a dead prostate on my life, and called it a week.  Labs in six months, lets chat next November.  All because I passed a blood test I didn’t even study for.

I’ll never get over the sense of dread in anticipating these visits.  No idea what the surviving cells within the radioactive containment might be mutating into.  Someone will probably say gay transforming robots.  In my nightmares I usually envision it as the thing battling the Atom in the opening pages of The Dark Knight Strikes Again.  Regardless, what we can’t detect won’t kill me this year – here’s to four years of successful whatever it is that’s happening in there.

Prostate Cancer Survival Varies By Season

Men diagnosed with prostate cancer in the summer and fall have a better chance of survival than those diagnosed in the spring and winter, a new study of Norwegian men suggests.

I wonder if they factored in the dispair and general suicidal feeling that winter’s mere existence tends to cause.  Radiation was bad enough without having to dig the car out from under a snowdrift every morning.  For the record, I was diagnosed in July.

Since the study was done with Norwegians, I assume they had an actual winter for use in the study, but I wonder what the results would be if they used some of us winterless folk as a control group.  Perhaps the study is not proof the curative powers of Vitamin D and the related sunshine as hinted by the “scientists”, but proof that candy canes and animated snowmen kill. What would Prosty the Spokesgland say if he know his relative (at least by name) Frosty was actually an evil harbinger of death?

We’ve killed a lot of the tumors. Now we’re waiting to see what the cancer is going to do. Where it’s going to strike next. It’s not an immediate threat right now. If there’s a growth spurt, or a lot of new tumors show up suddenly, then we’ll react. We’ll fire back. But in the meantime, we wait.

Listening to NPR this morning I caught one of Leroy Sievers’ reports on his battle with cancer.  Loved the analogy.   

Next week it will have been four years since my own little carcinoma got nuked, along with the rest of my innards.  I hope and pray it’s dead, but the reality is that I don’t know.  To keep with Sievers’ analogy, I want to go kick the body and make certain, but that’s not an option.  Actually I really want to dismember the beast, immerse the parts in acid, cremate whatever elements remain after that and then shoot the ashes into a black hole.  Just to make sure, yaknow?  But those aren’t options either.  I settle for going back to BorgHealth every six months and letting them kick the body, so to speak.  Yep, not moving, PSA normal, go home and don’t think about it.  Yeah, right.  Never take your eyes off the thing.

August 9 is National Underwear Day, and as the National Prostate Cancer Coalition keeps reminding me, my disease’s advocacy group is sponsoring this major marketing effort.

Notice they’re smart enough to use models for the public effort – if they threw a lot of us actual prostate cancer survivors into whitey tighties and marched us around town, I think that somehow the public sentiment would be for quarantine along the line of leper colonies, not more research or greater awareness.

Even though it’s been years since I’ve gone a day without thinking about prostate cancer, I’ll be wearing underwear most of tomorrow, and I’ll go ahead and claim a higher purpose in doing it. There may be pictures from our private celebration of the holiday here in San Diego, or maybe not, but until tomorrow, proof that Chuck sometimes wears underwear. If you need proof that Chuck has a prostate, go here.

As much as we both like dead pig cooked in a wide variety of manners, I was going to ignore the recent news articles about the possibility of a healthier, bio-engineered pig. Kinda thought the hype about a healthier greasy meat product was a bit pathetic. Kinda like the ads referring to chewing tobacco as a safer nicotine delivery system.

Then I got one of my little e-mail newsletters from the National Prostate Cancer Foundation. Lo and behold, their lead story this week was drawing the link between the added Omega 3-whatevers produced by the newer, shinier pigs, and recent research in those same Omega 3-whatevers in helping “prevent the spread of aggressive prostate cancer to other parts of the body.”

I like bacon and ham. And pork chops and ribs. Lots of pig parts make good eating. To the extent possible, they are all beloved and essential parts of Malnutrition 2006™, the official diet of Howling Point. I certainly would have preferred to go into an all-bacon regimen then do the radiation thing. I would have loved to have BorgHealth filling my weekly prescription for McRibs. I’ll bet it’s even Atkins-friendly. But it still comes across wrong. And while I never thought I’d say this about any pork product, it comes comes across as a bit tasteless.

Been spending a lot of time at various pools and gyms lately as the billable hours have gone into hiding. Made it to two pools today alone – one for laps (indoors, near the cube) and one for relaxing and tan-line maintenance (home). The cube dwellers’ business has been very slow – which hurts because I’m paid on billable hours, not salary. Don’t really want to be a full-time solo practitioner again (yet?) and I’m reluctant to take on too many part-time clients until I’m more certain of what I’ll be doing in the next few months.

We’re coming up on two years since the radiation started, and my health is as good as its going to get. The safety job has been going on too long, and while it added some stability to both the income stream and the resume that had been lacking in recent years, I think it has outlived its purpose. Time to get on with a career-type plan, or win the lottery, or something like that.

As part of my underachiever profile, I’ll admit to a tendancy to become complacent. That was probably one of the reasons Prozac scared me so much – it made the complacency obvious and downright dangerous. And yes, I was on Prozac for a while in 2003 – I was a single 39-year-old with a cancer diagnosis and no employer benefits – I’d consider myself (and anyone else in the same situation) a freak if I/they hadn’t been depressed and anxious.

Gotta find some motivation somewhere. Gotta move on.

Yeah, just the kind of analysis I want to wake up to on a Monday morning. Especially as I still wait for BorgHealth to tell me why I was under the weather last week [lab results pending]. Read the article; it’s a good one.

But while news of the Orlando symposium being reported was interesting, the comparisons of prostate cancer funding and advocacy to that for breast cancer in the article put me off a bit. Earlier this year I left a fundraiser for another cancer after the organizer made an off-the-cuff remark that his fundraiser was necessary because HIV/AIDS was getting all the government funding. True or not, advocating for one disease’s programs by running down other disease’s research programs just seems a bit untoward. On top of that, while I have a vested interest in massive research and funding into the causes and treatment of prostate cancer, I’m also still the guy looking for the medical research clause in the Consitution as he wonders why the federal government is in that business in the first place.

Turkey, family, and Native Americans. It’s a thanksgiving tale to warm hearts for the ages. Need a feel-good story? Read on.
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Woohoo. Went over to RadDoc today for pictures, and the old adage is still true: we’re all beautiful on the inside. The very cool staff took some chest X-rays to make sure none of the little seeds had migrated to my lungs. RadDoc and I went over those pics (no migration, no problems), and also a lovely shot taken of my pelvic region shot last Monday after the procedure. That one was the wierd one – normal X-ray stuff like bones and marking lines, then…
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Today was about relearning some limits. What’s the best way to learn, grasshopper? Why to attempt and fail, of course. After the big successes yesterday I thought I was ready to get out-and-about. I was wrong.

The day started off well. I did a bit of work, trying to keep the practice going. My parents came down and took me out to lunch. They brought fresh, tasty chocolate chip cookies and bought me a book I’d been waiting for too. We had a great time and I thought I was doing pretty well. We even took a swing by the office to pick up my mail. Then I came home and crashed. I don’t know whether it was the big meds from Monday finally wearing off or the radiation starting to kick in, but I’m beat. From a long lunch and a few errands. Pongo’s been giving me that look that’s the equivalent of reading me the riot act: you know better!

For tonight, now that dinner and meds are out of the way: big, soft, comfy, chair and several remote controls. Tomorrow I’ll start my new book: Every Second Counts. Some good people strongly recommended Lance Armstrong’s first account of his battle with cancer this summer and it came at a great time for me. The impact it made was very personal, and it certainly was one of those works that entered my life at exactly the right time for me. That book will always be very important to me, and I hope this one compares.