Stones

 

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 27^th 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.