Thursday, September 27, 2012

Boy, that went well. Maybe even too well.

I suppose that I should feel guilty somehow, but I don't, thank you.

On Monday I paid my dues and respect at Lake Hospital Systems' Lake West Hospital (us old timers still call it "West End Hospital").

For the entire summer I knew this trip was necessary if I ever was to lick the two cancerous tumors that were growing inside my prostate.

During that time I had lows and highs in emotions, the level depending upon how much anxiety was bubbling just beneath the surface. A few times it even began to boil over and spill onto my wife, Bev.

Pity because I never meant to hurt anyone, especially my wife of 40-plus years.

So I sucked it up and did my best to live a normal summer life. Even if that life was overflowing with other pressing health issues.

None, though, took on the significance  of dealing with cancer.

Yes, I know all about the huge survival rate if prostate cancer is caught early on, and mine was unearthed before the tumors could be felt as bumps during a doctor's physical examination.

Visiting first with an urologist, than with a radiological oncologist and finally with both at the time of Monday's procedure, the best cure option was to have what is called a "brachytherapy."

This is where specialized physicians inject hollowed-out, rice grain-sized titanium pellets called seeds into a man's cancerous prostate gland.

I would also like to note here that the pellets contain radioactive isotopes. While the radiation don't actually kill the cancer cells it does shake, rattle and roll their DNA in such a way that the bad little guys cannot reproduce.

When the urologist and the oncologist got done with me they had installed 70 strategically placed radioactive pellets.

The whole thing from when I entered the hospital at 8:15 a.m. until I left took just five hours.

Five hours out of my schedule isn't much when you consider that the procedure will give me a lifetime of enjoying my family, friends and the outdoors.

As far as the procedure itself, well, even the anesthesiologist called it boring.

Boring is fine by me, I told the assembled hospital staff as they readied me for the trip to the O.R.

Don't ask me what was going through my mind during my short journey aboard a hospital gurney.

Anesthesiologist and fellow Bible Community Church member John Hagopian  made sure of that by squirting some happy juice into the I.V. tube connected to my left wrist.

I was asleep before we rounded the first corner of the pre-op room.

Yet this is the part where I'm sort of feeling guilty for not feeling guilty.

Back in the recovery room an hour or so later and about the only thing I didn't request was something for the pain. That is because there was no pain.

Yeah, you read correctly: No pain. None. Zip. Naught. And anything else you kind find in a thesaurus, for that matter.

Even after Bev piloted me back home, helped me up the few steps and into the house, I felt comfortable, you know, down there.

Frequently exchanging a warmed-up ice packs for a freezer-chilled one I would press the intended pain- relief package up against where the seed-shooting needles had clipped skin and tissue.

This effort was strictly precautionary. The reason being: There was no pain down there. Nor anywhere else.

And though I was given a script for some pretty potent pain-killing synthetic-morphine substitute only one of the paperwork's capsules was swallowed. Just one, for crying out loud.

It was all truly amazing stuff, actually. Everything I read, every man who has had this procedure, everything just oozed to expect some level of discomfort.

But it never came, for which I am grateful beyond words.

Yes, my body is still in over-drive, trying to adapt to what's happened. There's some burning when I do have to urinate, and the urge to do so has increased markedly.

And there are times when that tap on the bladder comes a little to late.

Each of those things will eventually ease up, likely to nothingness, the doctors have said from Day One.

I can live with all that, I figure, especially considering the alternative.

Even so, not having something pain-wise to complain about leaves me stalled for comment.

I guess then all I can say is "thank you, Lord" and enjoy a day free of pain down there, all the while knowing that the odds are heavily stacked in favor of me verses the dreaded C-word.

The last thing I want now is to also take a guilt trip.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com
Twitter: @Fieldkorn



Friday, September 21, 2012

Time to ride, cancer posse

Well, the horse is all saddled up and we're burning daylight.

 After four very long months of seeing specialists, undergoing tests, having a biopsy taken from my prostate while still awake and then having several lymph nodes removed from my bladder, and a full scan of my entire skeleton, at 8:15 Monday morning I'll walk into Lake Hospital System's Lake West Hospital (sorry, but us Lake County old timers still say "West End").

There I'll  have what's left of my prostate poked with about 70 rice-grain-size hollowed-out titanium pellets (or "sees") that are filled with radioactive material (I believe Iodine-125, and imported no less).

The brachytheraphy - as it's called - will take roughly 60 to 90 minutes. In five years the process has a 96- to 98-percent survival rate.

Of course it's a life-altering procedure with a host of potential nasty side-effects.

But those are the unknowns.

What IS known is that without the treatment - and had I not been so paranoid about getting screened for prostate cancer every year since I turned 50 some 12 years ago the chances from eventually dying of these disease would have been almost certain. Or so says the doctors, and I'm not one to disagree.

 So for a few seconds during each old-man check-up I  allowed for the physical exam as well as the drawing of blood for the PSA test.

No regrets, only what might-have-been had I not insisted on the exam/test.

Come Monday afternoon I'll find myself on a strange new trail but I feel a sense of confidence, too.

I'll let you know how things go.

For now, I'm going home to enjoy a fancy meal of boiled lobster and a sweet potato topped off with brown sugar, maple syrup and a small dollop of butter.

I figure I deserve it, especially since on Sunday all I'll be allowed to have are liquids with no sugar or creamer to sweeten my coffee. Now that's punishment enough.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com
Twitter: @Fieldkorn