A Little Over A Month In

Been a busy couple of weeks around the old homefront.

My oldest daughter was married to a wonderful man, and the wedding came off without a hitch. We couldn't be happier.

With the wedding came two-weeks of frantic preparation, family in town, new family in town, dinners and airports and a general level of chaos that's pretty rare around the empty nest these days.

I did pretty well, although the fatigue and nausea are my constant companions. Add the arthritis and it makes for some difficult times.

They keep telling me that only two more months and the side-effects should subside. Can't happen soon enough for me.

I had someone come up to me after the wedding and ask me if I was having a good day or putting on a 'stiff upper lip'.

Well, a little of both. I danced with my daughter sans cane, was on my feet more in one day than I usually am in a week, and never stopped moving for hours. But it was worth it.

Sometimes you just have to push on and pay for it later.

Back to the pool

Got back in the water for the first time in a month yesterday.

It felt good.

I took it very easy, completing abut 1/3 of my usual workout, and even that wore me out a bit.

Still, the physical exercise does wonders not only for the body, but the mind and soul as well.

And, it was REALLY nice to get back to some sort of a routine, even if that routine is an abbreviated version of my regular day. It makes me feel 'normal'. Well, normal for me.

Plus I've got a huge group of friends at the pool. It felt like going home again. If by home I mean a wet, humid, chlorine-filled environment.

Every day is a little better. I know I'll have my ups and downs, as everyone does, but it's nice to see some progress.

Damn Cancer. Always with the problems.

Well, the nausea and fatigue didn't really go away - it just changed patterns.

That should not be allowed by the rules.

I like my life like I likes me womenz: Strong, dark, and bitter.

No wait, that's not right. That's coffee. OH! I know! I like my life to be somewhat consistent.

Stop laughing.

Anyway, I'm still experiencing some secondary side-effects. They get worse, then they get a little better giving me some hope that I'm on the downhill side, and then they get worse again.

I can handle the discomfort. I can handle the pain. I can handle the nausea and fatigue.

What I can't handle is every time I go to the bathroom wondering if the next time I'll have to be cathed. Interesting, because I've become a tad phobic about being cathed. (You can't see me right now, but I gots me a case of the 'willy-shivers' going on.) And it's so stupid, because I've been cathed quite a few times and while uncomfortable, it really isn't that big of a deal.

So, this will be the pattern for the next few months to a year. Although, if I can make it a couple more weeks, the odds that I'll have to have 'the tube' drop significantly.

I think it's more the idea than the physical actuality.

But, that's a hell of a lot of life, isn't it? The reality is often much more benign than thoughts that precede. Stupid humans.

There have been a couple of times over the last few days when I wondered if I'd selected the right treatment. With surgery it would have been done. Over. On to recovery.

Now it's like pulling a splinter out of your finger ever so slowly.

Of course with surgery it would have been like amputating the finger to get the splinter.

Damn cancer. Always with the problems.

Healing

So, I'm at that stage of recovery from the procedure where I'm . . . getting antsy to get back to my life.

I'm really missing the pool. I need to get back in the water for a host of reasons. I have a great community over there, and it would be nice to think about something other than cancer. Plus, my body really needs some exercise.

Don't you hate it when what they tell you is right? Exercise my friends. Exercise hard. It does the mind and body wonders.

They symptoms haven't really eased much, but I'm less tired now, and the nausea is slowly slipping away. Those are good things.

So, back to the pool for me on Monday. I'll be doing light workouts for a bit, but I'm sure I'll be back to my pruney self in no time.

Hey, it's a look.

Two Weeks In

Two weeks ago today I had the procedure.

I suppose it was naive of me to think that I could skate through this unscathed. But that's human. We have to do what we need to do to get through the day.

It's not terrible, but I'm certainly feeling the effects of the radiation. I'm experiencing quite a bit of fatigue, especially in the early afternoon. I'm queasy as hell a good bit of the time. That's always a fun combination. And, unfortunately, I'm also experiencing some urinary problems.

I had a friend ask me what it felt like. I told him imagine sitting on a grapefruit. Now add a pretty good Urinary Tract Infection on top of that and you'll get the idea. Except that when you go to pee, you can't.

The hell of brachytherapy is that I haven't really hit the toxicity mark quite yet. I could have these side effects for the next 18 months, or they could go away tomorrow.

I vote for tomorrow. :)

I'm sure I'll feel better once I can get back in the water. I don't think it will happen this week as I still have a couple open wounds. Pool water and wounds. That's not a good combo.

I also had my first true 'cancer moment' this weekend.

We went to Spokane to see relatives. It probably was a little early for that much traveling, but both Suz and I needed the trip.

So, I'm sitting in Spokane in the parking lot of a supermarket with my brother-in-law, while Suz and her sister ran inside to get some ingredients for dinner when the nausea kicked into high gear. I fought it for as long as I could but the hand writing was on the wall. Had to have my bro (Thank you Jahn!!) drive me over to the edge of the black top. As sick as I was I was still being considerate. No one wants to watch a bald man yak in the middle of a Safeway parking lot.

The whole damn episode was just weird.

I'm crossing my fingers that those days are going to be behind me very soon.

I'm also in the 'whiny' stage of recovery. One of Suzanne's favorites. :)

That's where I am. I'll keep you posted.

And I'm back.

Well, mostly back. :)

Firstly, let me say that if you ever need a medical procedure done, Swedish hospitals in Seattle are excellent facilities. They have their 'act' together so to speak. If you have been fortunate enough not to have experienced this first-hand, you don't know how rare of a quality this is in today's modern medicine.

The procedure went fine. Much like, "Okay Mr. Moore, we are going to give you the anesthetic . . . Wake up! All done!"

That's my kind of procedure.

I've been sore for the last few days, and some of the usual side-effects that one would expect, but nothing too terrible. My chief complaints would be fatigue and nausea. Hopefully that will clear now that I'm off the antibiotics and some other meds.

Now we play the waiting game.

I'll be able to go back to 'light' swimming in the next week or so. No lawn mowing (aw shucks) for the next month or so, along with no motorcycle riding, or any kind of jarring activities. Gotta make sure those 'seeds' don't dislodge until they have time to heal and set properly.

Not that those are issues at the moment. I'm still not feeling quite good enough to ride anyway.

But all-in-all I'm on the mend.

I'll keep you posted.

Tomorrow is D-Day.

By this time tomorrow I should be about to check into the hospital for my little procedure.

For those that are interested, this is a fairly good article explaining exactly what's going to happen.

http://www.rmg.md/cancers/prostate/seed-implant/brachytherapy.htm

My job in all of this is to show up, and lie still while they slip the IV in the vein.

Then it's off to sleepy town!

And then wake up again after it's over. As I understand, the going to sleep part is easy. But sometimes the 'wakey-wakey' part is a problem.

Various people over the last few days have asked me if I'm nervous or anxious about the procedure.

Not really. I suppose I could work myself into a tizzy be imagining every horrible outcome there could be. Running that scenario over and over in my head until I was a basket case.

No thank you. Been there. Done that.

You know, we harp on people for living in the past and missing out on the present. And I'm sure we all know someone like that. But living in the future is no better. Well, it is if you fantasize an ideal future, but how many of us do that? No, we run every possible situation we can imagine, trying to 'prepare'. But reality is never as we imagine. So why go there?

That's what causes worry and anxiety.

Here's a 'Davidism'. (Feel free to use it so long as you credit me as the originator. :)) Worry is nothing more than fantasizing failure. Think about that for a minute.

The best words regarding worrying, and ones that I've probably posted before, are from the Dali Llama. "If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever."

I've heard him condense this to: "If there is a problem, and you can do something about it - no worries. If there is a problem and there is nothing you can do about it - there is no reason to worry."

So there you are, and here I am.

I'll post more when I get back from the other side.

See you soon.