Pre-Surgery Prep

Early this afternoon I had my last solid food until after the surgery--sushi. Then, several hours later I chugged a small bottle of Magnesium Citrate, well-chilled.

I filled the in-between time by running up to Best Buy and getting a new modem for the house. This afternoon, the old one sputtered to the end of its five-year-old line, according to Qwest tech support.

I have no way to prove it, but believe I might give off a disruptive electrical charge that is especially evident during times of stress. For example, back in December, just after I got news that Mom was dying, our power went out, for no apparent reason. I think that's what happened to the old modem.

Back online, eating green jello now, appetizer for my chicken broth dinner. To be followed by red jello dessert, and then the first of two enemas. That joy broken up by a Chlorhexidine Gluconate sponge bath.

After midnight, "nothing further by mouth," advises my patient information sheet.

Cancer Boy

When my wife and BFF was diagnosed with breast cancer about four years ago, she fashioned for herself a character called "Cancer Girl" who could get whatever she wanted, from whomever, in almost any situation, because of the eponymous disease. In slavish imitation I have adopted a similar nickname.

At Trader Joe's today, I grabbed the pre-made Carne Asada, and when BFF looked askance, I answered that it was for Cancer Boy. Similarly with the chocolate bar, and salt and pepper potato chips. An extra 6-pack of beer? Cancer Boy. Fresh scallops? Cancer Boy.

The expensive fifth of bourbon? You know who. Lounging in front of the NBA playoffs with a glass of same? Ditto.

After a big breakfast tomorrow, it will be chicken broth and jello until Monday's surgery. After that, I hope to be Cancer Boy no longer.

Twelve More Days

It's 12 days until my prostate gland will be surgically removed. The extent to which it is infested with cancer is not exactly known, but believed to be contained within a quadrant, where the little buggers may, or may not, be nibbling at the shell of the gland. A complete biopsy will be available a week after the surgery.

Most of my thoughts lately have been focused on those two medical events--surgery and biopsy...well, not exactly true. I am also thinking about sex and my ability to give and receive pleasure without that walnut-sized secretor of semen, and without whatever portion of the bundle of nerves that stimulate an erection must be removed.

For now, though, it's spring break until next Monday.

As prescribed, I do Kegels, kind of fitfully. Take late showers.

Erections, and preparing lesson plans for next month's substitute teacher, have become the obsessive driver of my actions.

Twelve more days to have all the body parts I was born with...not that I want to be dramatic about it...

I look at brochures and video testimonies featuring the brotherhood of prostate cancer survivors. The visuals alone are encouraging. All these guys look confident, wryly humorous, attractive in an athletic sort of way, in short, virile. But, "That's going to be me," morphs into a questioning whine.

And then there's the daunting specter of the catheter...I'll think of it as torture: a healthy man caught spying behind the front lines of disease. I'll grin and bear it, soldier on, man up!...Won't I?

Good News

My dear wife was--HOORAY!--clean of any new cancer. I am still blithely optimistic about my upcoming surgery. However, the weather has been awfully gray, rainy, and cold.

C'est la Vie

On the same day, in a couple of weeks, my wife and I are seeing respective doctors to check in on our cancers. March twenty-second.

I don't think of myself as someone whose self-definition normally includes reference to a medical problem, especially one so iconically extreme.