My credit card app recently told me I paid some small amount of money to renew this here blog that I didn’t know was still a thing, but by golly it sure is.

Lucky you, I guess.

What’s been going on in your life, Don, probably nobody is asking, but let me tell you.

I retired from the police department three years ago now. It was a pretty unceremonious and, if I’m being honest, ill thought out spur of the moment decision, but one I mostly don’t regret.

At the time, I had been riding my kids to take chances. Do something if you’re not happy and all that jazz my wife and I implored them to do as I maintained the status quo in my own life intentionally not taking chances or making changes to adjust my own level of happy.

I had, well, still have, a law degree. I’m a bona fide attorney according to the State of Missouri. Have been for over fifteen years. Those who know me best find this hard to believe, but it’s true. I passed that there bar test and paid my fees and everything.

I thought I would probably hate lawyering, but I needed to prove it to myself so I accepted a job with the Missouri Attorney General’s Office and told the police department to kiss my ass in the kindest way possible.

Lawyering was not for me, unsurprisingly. Suits and ties and pretending to be cordial with other douchebags in suits and ties I wanted to punch right in the face was too much. I enjoyed the work of prosecuting dirtbags who scammed people out of money, but the justice system is so slow and mostly unsatisfying to every party involved.

I did it for almost two years and took work in hospital security, which I really enjoy. That’s what I do still.

Now that we’re caught up, let’s get to why I started typing in the first place.

I started typing this to shout into my laptop about my run in with cancer.

Prostate cancer.

It’s not the worst, and if you’re a dude who has to take a turn with cancer, there are definitely worse options.

I don’t think it’s going to kill me, but I still don’t recommend it. I hate that I belittle my own “illness” or whatever, but for real, there are so many other people out there who have it way worse that I can’t help myself.

It started with a blood test that I almost didn’t do.

My primary care doctor suggested I get a PSA test done, presumably because I had recently turned fifty. I didn’t really have any symptoms or issues that weren’t related to me being fifty and too fat and drinking too much Bud Light Lime, but I agreed that I would get the test because I’m a good patient and doctors apparently don’t finger probe anuses anymore to check for such things.

Fast forward four or five months and I still hadn’t gotten the blood test done.

There is a Quest Diagnostics 1.6 miles from my house. I have to drive past it to get to almost anywhere else on earth that I want to go AND it’s in the same small strip as a liquor store!

Still…

We are creatures of habit and my habit wasn’t to give twenty minutes of my life away for no real good reason and, if I’m being honest, I just plain forgot about it.

Luckily for me, because aging is so awesome, I have an annual blood draw for a different medication and that did finally lead me into the very close Quest.

While there, I happened to recall the PSA request my doctor made and asked the young lady phlebotomist if she could do that test as well as the one I was there for with the same blood draw. Lucky for me, she said she could and she sure did.

This is where the fun begins.

So a couple of days later, of course, the test results showed up in what my medical group or whatever calls MyChart. I’m sure these are pretty ubiquitous now and they serve some people well, but I have mixed feelings about important test results getting shared with people on a random Saturday night with no context or immediate access to anything but Google to try to explain what it all means.

PSA – Normal value < OR = 4.00 ng/mL

Value 13.57 HIGH. HIGH was highlighted in a yellow box.

Neat.

WTF does any of that mean?

I’m not a total dumbass but I’m also not the brightest bulb either. Obviously, I knew it meant that my PSA was higher than it should be, but WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

How high is really too high? Thirteen is bigger than four, but it’s not like it’s a billion. Is a billion feasible?

I had no idea and it was Friday night. Friday the 13th of September to be exact.

I sent a message to my PCP and he did respond…on Monday as expected.

He was diplomatic but intentionally vague and not very reassuring to be honest. I just wanted him to tell me what he thought the chances were that it was cancer.

He had said when he half ass brought up taking the test months before that it was a horribly unreliable test, so there was still hope in my brain that it was just an unreliable test being a dickhead to me.

Hope aside, I knew what it was. Not sure why, but I knew it was going to be cancer. It just seemed like the perfect punch in the dick (pun sort of intended) from life at that point.

The doctor referred me to a urological group with which we could all share future MyChart messages together.

We have a fantastic local cancer center not affiliated with the MyChart messaging system called Siteman.

Not wanting to settle, I reached out to them to see if they could see me, but they don’t take my primary insurance so they said no without much consideration.

I have secondary insurance that they do take, but they said no again. That’s not how it worked.

I was stuck with the group referred to me by my doctor I guess.

The doctor I saw at the initial consultation was very nice and seemed competent enough. He suggested an MRI so we scheduled that.

The MRI was scheduled enough weeks out that I figured none of this is urgent. I would continue to live life and wait to see what that test said.

A couple of days before the test, the MRI people called to say that the test would have to be postponed because one of the two insurance companies I have said another PSA test was required before they would approve it.

Are you fucking kidding me right now?

I know it’s not your fault I told the lady, but I was pissed. She understood, of course, and said the doctor was trying to convince the insurance company doctor that another test was a waste of time and to let the MRI happen.

About this time a medical insurance company CEO was gunned down in the streets of NYC and my God, I was starting to understand how that could happen…

The MRI was pushed back because the insurance company always wins. It was only a week, but still.

Total horseshit.

The MRI was done and the test results were sent to me via MyChart once again with alacrity.

The same day!

There were words like lesion in the left posterior peripheral zone, high suspicion for malignancy, PI RADS scores and on and on.

Google was again no help in getting my pea sized brain to comprehend what was actually going on.

At this point, it had been over a month and I’d told exactly zero people what was going on.

In hindsight, this was stupid.

I wanted to know I had cancer and be able to tell my wife I do or do not have cancer. I didn’t want to tell her I might have it and worry us both for no reason, but that’s the play if you’re in a similar situation reading this somehow.

Tell her right away!

Suffering some bullshit like cancer alone is so stupid if you don’t have to. It’s not the time to “protect” your spouse. I guess that was my logic anyway.

Lesson learned for me.

I did finally tell a neighbor because she’s a therapist with some actual experience in this field, but the wife’s support is where it’s at.

Anyway, it did help to get it off my chest and finally telling Carissa what was up helped even more.

The MRI results were of course not great news, but the doctor wouldn’t commit to saying I had cancer yet. The WTF is happening continued and a biopsy was scheduled.

The biopsy would finally tell me the bad news I needed to finally confirm!

The biopsy appointment showed up in my good ole MyChart and guess what?

I had been seeing a urologist named Dr. BL.

The biopsy was scheduled to be performed by Dr. H.

I shot off a MyChart message to find out who Dr. H was and why the f#ck he was doing my biopsy and not Dr. BL, who I’d become acquiainted with.

The nurse assured me that Dr. H. had gone to medical school and was a very competent doctor. The way the schedule rotates just caused it to be his day to do my biopsy.

Whatever.

On biopsy day, Dr. H. plucked pieces of my prostate out of my butthole with such aplomb that I now wanted him to be my doctor through the rest of this ordeal.

The procedure was painless and relatively without much discomfort, but I liked the way he talked me through it and more importantly, I liked how he treated his staff during the procedure. He was very uplifting and positive. You maybe needed to be there, but count your blessings you weren’t because again…my butthole.

Another MyChart notification and cancer, cancer, cancer it was as I suspected the whole time.

Now what?

Well, aside from the medical side of things, which is difficult enough, one has to navigate how and what to share with family and friends.

There are so many rules when it comes to cancer, man.

I told the kids sort of off handedly and got in trouble because my wife wasn’t there for us to do it together.

My wife told my mom and other close family without me and we were all in trouble because that wasn’t apparently correct either.

This cancer was confusing stuff.

Fast forward again because this is too long and I actually feel better for having typed about it and my surgery went well.

Dr. H. did end up being my doctor and has been awesome. For a man who cut six holes in my abdomen to yank a gland or organ or whatever a prostate is out of my body and left me with a piss bag to go home with, I truly like him a lot.

I can’t say enough about the nurses and staff at the hospital. My experience was as good as could have been expected.

Nurses man.

They are truly a fucking blessing. The good ones for sure.

One of them doodled on me while I was only semi-conscious.

I was a model patient and was thanked multiple times. How bad do you think they get treated that they thank people who are polite for not being garbage?

Anyway, the follow up appointment was yesterday and that catheter was removed after I spent ten days with it. When I tell you I’ve never wanted anything out of my life so much…

I have a few years of more PSA blood tests to take to stay on top of this crap, but I’m glad to have the years still.

In the context of prostate cancer patients it seems as though I’m a young man. Lol. When the doctor calls me young he flatters me.

I’ll take it.

As I type this twenty four hours after that follow up I’m wearing a pad in my drawers because piss leaks from my pee hole whenever it wants.

It burns like fire and razor blades when I actually initiate the peeing myself.

My six abdominal scars are gross.

Sex is out of the question for the foreseeable future and may only happen then with pills or injections or some other nonsense, but at the end of the day I’m a lucky guy.

Not so lucky to have cancer, but again, it’s a treatable one. Lucky me.

I have insurance. Lucky.

I have a job that’s working with me and even paying a little bit of my salary while I’m out. Lucky.

I have a supportive and understanding wife who this probably stressed out more than it did me these past few weeks. Lucky.

Great kids. Lucky.

And most importanly, I’m back to bbqing.

It’s been over a week and it’s been killing me, but today I got back after it with a quick pork belly cook. Lucky.

I still haven’t run any Bud Light Lime through my system since surgery as it makes me have to pee and well, fire and razorblades remember.

At the end of the day I think things will work out fine for me, but I was lucky. Don’t wait, y’all. Get yourselves tested. Boobies, prostates, colons, all of it! Early detection helps.

Peace and positive MyChart messages to everyone.