Let Me Get This Out Of The Way

There seems to be an elephant in the room. People ask me about it, and I ignore the question most of the time just because I don' want it to be the thing that defines me. First off, let me say I have no expiration date stamped on my forehead. I have no plans to go anywhere anytime soon.

I'll try not to be too graphic when I talk about the medical aspects of this thing, but as most of my friends and relatives are doctors, nurses and cops, I'm pretty sure you can deal with it. Like me, you've all seen and experienced much worse.

I have stage 4 prostate cancer. Stage 4 means it has left the primary region and affected distant locations in the body. In my case the bone. I have a biopsied confirmation in my spine at L2/L3. There are other locations that the doctors are calling "suspicious". What suspicious means is that "we don't really have to biopsy it because we already know what we will find, so there isn't any need to poke you full of holes". Those locations are my hips, knees, shoulders and ribs. I'm not going to go into the whole "life expectancy" thing because it doesn't matter, no one knows. I have the same amount of time as you do, the "rest" of my life. You could get hit by a bus tomorrow, so anything past that is just a gift, right? There are "averages", but they are really broad. Somewhere between 2 and 10 years depending on treatment. Well, pretty much anyone at my age could say that so, what difference does it make.

I feel fine. Really! I have no pain to speak of. For about 4 days after chemo I feel like crap. I can barely leave the bedroom. Then after that for a few days, I can barely leave the bathroom. Well, except to stagger to the sofa and lay back down. After that, the worst thing is just chronic fatigue. I am tired all the time. I do something, anything for a few minutes, and I have to sit down and rest. I seem to spend a lot of time sitting in parking lots trying to catch my breath before going in or out of a building. They tell me that that feeling will go away a couple of months after chemo ends.

I can't taste salt anymore. Everything I eat seems flat and bland. It's hard to really enjoy food.

Sometimes I get this flavor in my mouth like I've been sucking on a copper penny. Metallic, not very tasty. I'm not complaining though, at least it's a flavor.

I'm not losing weight, but I am getting smaller from not eating as much. Not sure how that happens, but my weight has stayed pretty consistent, although my clothes are looser. I'm probably the only guy around who, while nauseas, thinks about what I'm going to eat when I'm no longer nauseas. The first day of chemo is okay. The negative effects don't usually start for 24 to 48 hours.

I still run errands, do chores around the house when I feel up to it and I try to keep occupied. It's important to have something to do. If I didn't, I'd spend too much time thinking about my situation. I would love to get back to work. I hate sitting around the house all the time. I miss my job. I never realized I would miss it until I wasn't going anymore. I can't wait to get back.

I read a lot. All the things that interest me. Art, statistical mathematics, computer science, medicine, philosophy, religion and history. I buy exercise books and pretend I'm actually going to use them someday.