Okay, there’s a bit in this one, especially as I haven't lobbed anything here for a while, so for those that don’t want
to plough through my verbosity, here’s the really short version.
TLDR:
· I’ve got prostate cancer but it was found really really early which makes me quite lucky.
· I’m on a monitoring program rather than having to have my prostate removed immediately.
· I’m going to do a marathon (because I have mental deficiencies)
· Its in Denmark.
· I’m using it as an opportunity to raise money for cancer research. (You can support this effort HERE but there is of course no obligation. You can suffer my verbosity free of charge!)
For the full story ... read on ...
Stones
I went on something of an unexpected and not entirely welcome
medical journey over the back end of last year. It wasn’t something I planned
of course, but something I had to work through regardless.
I’m not going to be overly graphic here, but there’s some
things that are integral to the story that you’ll have to put up with if you
want to understand the journey.
It started off in a way that probably sounds typical of most
blokes. At first, I put it down to age. Having to pee more frequently. Not
having the strength of stream I used to have. I mean, when I speak to guys my
age and older, it seems to be a pretty common thing.
But then one day I was standing at the urinal at work (one
of the white ceramic individual ones, not the old-school stainless-steel beasts)
and as I was peeing I saw a fleck of something dark (not red) against the white
porcelain.
“Huh,” I thought. “Did that splash up from under the drain
cover, or like, did that come from me?”
There was no way of checking, so I didn’t make a lot of it
and went on with life.
It happened a couple of times over a period of time, without
me ever quite working out whether it was just something splashing up or something
a bit more sinister.
Then came the day when I heard something hit the porcelain
with a distinct ‘Ting!’. It was exactly like a stone would sound. And as it
turns out, that was exactly what it was. And it had most definitely come from
me. Not a good sign at all. Time to book in to see the doctor.
So that’s what I did. Without being graphic, I managed to
obtain a sample of what I was now infrequently passing and went to see my GP
who booked me in for an MRI.
Then came the blood when I was exercising. I’d been starting
to get back into running, but if I pushed out beyond 5kms or half an hour or so
on the elliptical trainer, toward the end, I’d see blood in my urine. The only
reason I didn’t panic was because I was already booked in for the scan. That
and a bit of googling suggested that there wasn’t a great reason to immediately
panic.
I backed off the exercise somewhat because you know, blood
can’t be a good thing and waited for the scan and subsequent discovery of what
was going on.
Turns out they were bladder stones. Symptomatic of retaining
too much fluid in the bladder, it being too acidic and turning into stones.
Because it turns out I had a very swollen prostate.
Now that is something that is very common as men get older.
At least that’s what I learned from the urologist.
First step was to get the stones out, so I was booked in for
a vacuum clean for want of more medically correct terminology. That procedure
saw me in hospital for an overnight visit and the advice and news off the back
of it was that my prostate was swollen enough that I’d need to have another
procedure but that at least there wasn’t any sign of cancer. That was a relief
at least.
So I booked in for a follow-up. A TURP – Trans urethral resection
of the prostate. Both a mouthful and a heap of ‘fun’. Basically it’s a re-boring
of the prostate which would enable me to drain my bladder properly again and
carry on.
It went well, though the recovery wasn’t a whole lot of fun
given I wasn’t allowed to lift anything more than 5 kilograms. That and the fact
that when I had to go, I really had to go and had to do so frequently meant I
worked from home for a good month after the operation.
It must have been about a week and a half after the
operation that I received an unexpected call from the urologist. I assumed that
it was simply him checking in on my recovery as he’d done after the first operation.
He was, but that wasn’t all.
He let me know that it is normal procedure when they perform
surgery on the prostate that they take a tissue sample and have it tested.
Turns out that my sample had a teeny-tiny bit of cancerous
tissue.
Bugger.
Allegedly 5% of the sample was cancerous and then 5% of that
5% was of a type that had a propensity to grow and spread. So that wasn’t great
news. I pretty much rang Caroline, went back to working from home (thought not
all that efficiently at the time if I’m honest) and embarked on a bit of cancer
research on the side. And I made an appointment to go back to see the urologist
for a deeper understanding of what I was in for.
The rest of that week was pretty crap. I mean the first
night I was up at 2 or 3am checking on my insurance policies and further
reading up on prostate cancer. I don’t know that it helped a lot but it did
pass the time.
The initial message that I received was that I’d likely have
to have my prostate removed early in the new year. That put something of a dent
in my enthusiasm and I certainly wasn’t thinking about exercising.
I had to have MRI and
PET/CT scans to assess whether the cancer was contained within the prostate or
had perhaps spread outside of it.
It wasn’t a great place to be mentally, waiting even with
the knowledge that I was at a very low risk of hearing extra bad news.
When the results did come in, the news was even better than
I’d expected. It turns out that the extent of my cancer was such that if I hadn’t
had the operation and sample taken, they wouldn’t have found it. By the screening
tests that would have been conducted, I’d have been declared cancer free.
What does that mean?
It means that I now get monitored once every four months to
check my PSA levels to see if there’s been any increase. So far, four months
after the initial test, there hasn’t been. Now I just have to hope that I
continue on that trajectory for a long time to come!
I feel almost guilty at times when I compare my story to others
I know of because while it hasn’t been fun, its been nothing compared to the
challenges those people have faced.
But it did make me decide on something.
As I approached 50 years of age, I pondered running a marathon.
50 came and went and I didn’t do it. I ran a few half marathons and decided
running double that distance was surely a sign of cognitive decline and utter
stupidity.
But the thought occasionally nagged at me … do one before
you can’t.
Off the back of the initial operation and before I knew about
the cancer, it started to nag at me again. I was discussing this with one of
Michael and Olivia’s wedding guests on the night of their wedding. I spoke of
how what I really needed to get the decision over the line was someone to commit
with me so that I’d feel guilty if I thought of pulling out of the challenge.
That resulted in a pinky-swear to run a marathon within 12 months and to make
it a bit more exciting, that we’d run it overseas somewhere.
The thought of the prostatectomy kind of put those thoughts
on hold. That and the fact my new running budding was diagnosed with a congenital
heart defect and was told she shouldn’t be running. I could have taken it as a
sign.
I didn’t of course.
After getting the news I’d be monitored rather than going
through another operation, I decided I should do it. I’d sign up for an event,
start training and just do it.
It took a little while, but I’ve now signed up.
And because it was supposed to be an adventure (beyond just
grinding my bones into dust) I’m going to run in Denmark.
All the really big marathons looked simply too hard to get
into and I needed time to get in the right head space to sign up, which mean
only doing so some 6 months before the event. Research to find one at the right
time of year saw me sign up to run in Odense on the 27th of September.
I was prepared to run it alone, expecting that I’d talk
Caroline into coming along as the support crew, but Thomas has agreed to run it
with me. So I’ll have companionship in my insanity.
I mean, fly out of Adelaide on Wednesday, run a marathon on
the other side of the world on Sunday and then fly back to return to work on
Thursday is pretty normal right?
So there you go, that’s the news. At least the brief version.
If you want to come to Denmark to laugh at me as I run, feel
free. Or, if you’d like to simply support the cause with a small donation, that
would be much appreciated too. I’ve set myself the goal of raising a thousand
dollars as its not the reason I’m doing it, but rather a by-product.
Now I just have to run … a lot.
