Two Score Miles and Ten

Waterstone detour (3)

12 feb 2013

Yes, it HAS been a long time, a lifetime it seems.

Shortly before Christmas I had a routine doc appointment. Having long passed my "40th" -- my GP was insistent that it was high time for The Great Digital Exam.

And we're not talking computers here.

Down came the pants, on went her blue nitrile gloves and a whole lotta lubricant and in she went. Very cold, but also more uncomfortable than I'd been led to believe.

After what seemed like a very long time, I had the courage to look her in the face and saw a worried look. She was looking like she was concentrating very hard at a math problem and I remember thinking, no - I hadn't read about THAT reaction.

Finally she said, "I'm feeling something. I think. I'd feel better if you saw a urologist. The front desk will give you a referral for this. Let me know as soon as possible."

As-Soon-As-Possible aren't words you want to hear.

But, the next week, I was a very posh high rise medical building, bending over, and having a urologist poking around Up There.

"Let's go for a biopsy, shall we?"

It was enough to make me want to spit. It wasn't like he was suggesting we go - together - for an ice cream cone, or a double latte at Peets. In fact, I was sure, he wasn't even going to be BE there at all.

- - -

13.Feb.2013

Had to sign off to check some worrisome email from work.

There's a short story and a long one. The short: the world changes when a doctor looks up from his notes, moves his eyes to yours, and says, "unfortunately, we found cancer." Prostate cancer.

One week later, I was sitting in front of a calming radio-oncologist - the Waterstone Cancer Treatment center here in Berkeley, being told that I was being scheduled for something called brachytherapy - a relatively non-invasive procedure where your put on your back, legs in stirrups and waaaaay up in the air, and between 70 and 150 teeny little radioactive plugs are needed directly into the prostate gland by way of the perineum. We're talking foot long needles. It's a whole big deal, anesthesia, OR, a small team of people waiting for you.

There are lots of funny stories to tell but the only important one is that the therapy seems to be working. Blood markers that show the presence of cancer are dropping nicely, the side effects of radiation are minor (some funny, but again -- 'nother day).

I feel... very.... lucky.....

- - -

14.Feb.2013

One of the side effects of this procedure? I will remain radioactive for another 6 or so months.

All those bits of highly radioactive material are sitting inside my prostate gland essentially destroying it from the inside. But, that material is radioactive and despite its amazingly brief half-life, it IS enough for me to light up a Geiger counter.

Admittedly, one in an intimate position to me .

SO, I carry around a card in my wallet that lets people know who, say, find me unconscious and dying after a car accident, that I'm under the care of Oncologist so-and-so, and that UNDER NO CONDITIONS can my body be buried.

Hmm.... my grave would become a Superfund Site!

Apparently, what has to happen is that someone has to go in, remove the radioactive prostate from my corpse and only THEN release the body to 'loved ones.'

'have no idea how they handle the walnut-sized prostate gland afterwards. Don't care one little bit, actually.

- - -

15.feb.2013

There's good stuff that's happened by way of this experience. Lots of good stuff, but I don't want to start 'ranking' them so:

---I've learned that for many people, you live WITH cancer - it's not the inevitable death sentence many of us were raised to think

---Not to prickly about it, but for anyone who's confronted by having to deal with hearing the news of a friend getting a cancer diagnosis, THINK before you speak. Having been on both sides of that exchange, as the person trying to be - somehow - consoling . there's a whole minefield of things you really,.. really ...don't want to stay. Don't call us brave, don't talk about how we're uniquely suited for The Battle Ahead, don't tell us about your aunt sally's next door neighbor's best friend who had a cancer JUST LIKE YOURs and "she's just FINE!", don't tell us "it'll probably work out fine," If you don't know WHAT to say, say just that . a very good friend simply commented, "honestly, Michael, I don't know what to say.."

---You make friends in unexpected places. There's a hospital chaplin, Raisa - who contrary to a Chaplin-y image of a handsome woman in sensible shoes, toting both an equally sensible hair style and a crucifx the size of a kielbasa, Raisa is a florescent-orange sneaker, nearly shaved head, lesbian activist who teaches mindfulness and casts worship bells as a side gig to offering solace to cancer patients. And then there's Jorge - a very sweet medical tech who is always flirting with me and, since I believed that I was uncertain about which way (thumbs up or down) the treatment would go, I figured any bit of attention was welcome. Yep, I flirted back outrageously with him. And then there's Lian, the Vietnamese coffee shop owner where either Raisa or Jorge I would go when we were playing hooky from the somber reality of Waterstone Campus. I'm sure she wondered about the orientation of a person one day being buddy-buddy to a kinda dyke-y woman and another, playing footsie with a cute gay guy who finally admitted to taking his purple scrubs to a tailor to 'show of his body more.'

---Oh, and one more thing I learned. DON'T CALL US SURVIVORS. We are people who've had cancer. We've been treated, and we've responded not by way of some herculean moral strength on our part but rather, through a day by day, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other regimen of tests, appointments, treatments, and scans. Please don't see us a label. I'm still the same person I was before the diagnoiss and treatment. Don't please compress me into An Example of A Category.

------

later

phew, I guess I was a bit prickly about all that. Sorry...

- - -

17 February 2013

as if matters weren't bad enough. The firm is convulsing, there's a rumor of an imminent takeover of Discovery by a larger consultancy, my boss was just sent to the professional Gulag of being a Partner in Process Control clients (as near as anyone can tell me, this has to do with sending Goop through Pipes) and my group is now in the charge of a neurotic and paranoid Russian mathematician who clearly has his Favorites in the team.

I'm not one of them.

- - -

19 Feb 2013

ORD, gate 33, waiting to push back

Thank god I can get away from the chaos of Mountain View. It's a full-on panic there. In contrast, I have a plumb little assignment to cover a story-telling-in-strategic-planning seminar in Honolulu. 3 days of, um, sitting in lecture halls hearing about the importance of stories in connecting important ideas to clients. Ok. OK. I imagine there'll be SOME time for R-and-R. A wise friend cautioned, Lots of sunblock and 'for gods sake wear a big brimmed hat, remember NO tan for your return."

For no particularly special reason, I shared my Hawaii gig with Todd. Never one to miss out on a licentious comment, he sent me a long email describing "Test Reviews" of which lubes were best for hot and humid climates. Along with a pic from (I presume) his bedroom where he has a massive bedside bowl of different condoms, flanked by an impressive cluster of lubricants. One appears to be sparkly. Hmm... I'm curious about whether something like that is edible. Uh, I think I'll pass on sending that kind of a query to my old friend in Vancouver.