The Results
First let me say, this turns out okay.
I shouldn’t have posted my biopsilogical odyssey before I
posted a result. It wasn’t my intention
to leave people hanging, though you have to admit, a good suspense story…
When I called for the results – and I admit, I put it off –
the office manager told me I needed to come in…they found “a little bit of
cancer.”
I’m the best guy I know to come onto a grisly auto accident
or deal with a victim or perpetrator of domestic violence or have to put an
animal down, because I have a delayed reaction to trauma. I separate almost instantly so I can see what
can be done, then fold later. But I do
fold.
There was about a twenty-four hour period between the time I
got the information over the phone and the time I sat down with the
doctor. I had played around with the
possibilities for almost a week following my biopsy, but for that last twenty
four hours I had to sit with the WORD.
I went to the pool and worked out, feeling maybe as strong
as I had in a long time, but carrying the irony that this might be stronger
than I would feel, like, ever again. I
did what we all do, I think: promised to use my time better, be more embracing
of people who irritate me, remember we’re all in this together and slap the
Christian Right harder for being so insensitive as to keep wounded kids from
reading their truths in our works because they don’t like the word “fuck”, even
though that’s not a biblically barred word.
My urologist, whom I earlier characterized unfairly in my
quest for comedy (he didn’t REALLY say I wasn’t a Stotan; it was just too good
a line to pass up) showed me two areas of my prostate that contained a small
number of cells. He affirmed some things
of which I was already aware: that almost any man who lives long enough will
encounter this situation, that about fifty percent need no treatment, and that
we often over-treat it because of irrational fear of that WORD. That said, I’m not off the hook. I’ll be on an “active surveillance” program
that gets me into the doc every three months for a blood draw, and will get me
another biopsy within the next year to be sure we’ve got an eye on those
malevolent little buggers, and can get a leg up on them should they try
anything funny.
Truth is, I’ve been giving people bad news long enough that
I know how to take some, and because of my life as a close observer of human
mal- and mis-treatment, feel incredibly fortunate not to have received more of
that bad news than I administered.
Some good things - even more than a renewed appreciation of
my existence - have come of this. Your
responses on Facebook have told me, 1) either the doc messed up with my
anesthetics or my body is extraordinarily resistant to whatever they used, and
when I sign up for that second biopsy I’ll make mention of that, and 2) I have
a delightful connection with a vastly diverse collection of generous
people. For that I thank you.
In the name of full disclosure I need to say one more
thing. Though I appreciate the number of
people praying for me because that is how you show your love and regard – and I
DO appreciate it - I don’t receive those prayers because if I believed in, and
loved, a God who would hear those prayers and save me, I’d have to hate a God
who would turn his back on those who prayed for my sister, who died miserably nearly
two years ago of pancreatic cancer, and for my old high school quarterback who
died almost exactly a year later of the same.
I would argue that each was a far more graceful and deserving human than
I. Instead, I am enormously grateful to
a universe that embraces us enough to let randomness rule. It makes life exciting and terrifying and
unpredictable, and sets a course on which each of us has influence over whether
we soar or crash. It is a universe that
embraces the ghastly along with the glorious.
Nothing exists without its opposite.
Again, I apologize for writing that original piece as a
cliff-hanger.
Too late to make a long story short, but bottom line,
there’s a pretty good chance that my prostate won’t leave me prostrate.
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