Another Battle to Take On

I went to the doctor earlier this month for a checkup and got the requisite blood test before the appointment. When you get to be my age (60 later this year) a blood test is a big deal. How has your body held up after rigorous (or non-rigorous) activity and all of the things you've done and ingested over the years? How's your LDL, HDL, RA Factor or CBC? It doesn't matter if you feel great, it's all in the numbers. Today's medical technology is amazing, because just one simple blood test will tell you pretty much how you're doing.

The doctor told me my numbers were fine, so I thought--wow, victory! But, then a week later I got a call and he told me that he had missed one particular number that had him concerned. My PSA number went up from 4 to 11 within eight months and that's not a positive sign. In a fog, I heard the "C" word and it made my feet tingle. Any time something bad happens (even when I see someone on TV getting hurt) my feet tingle.

Oh ----, I thought here we go. Shock followed by the realization that we can't control anything in this life. With a carousel of scary things traveling through my brain, I called the urologist for an appointment. "We can't see you until late March." "But I may have prostate cancer!" I said. "Oh wait--we had a cancellation today. Can you be here at 2 p.m.?" I thought that's a little soon, maybe I should wait a day or two to process this before I jump in. But, I figured no--let's deal with this now. Let's take it on. So, I made the appointment and met with Dr. Ed Collins at CPMC here in San Francisco.

He told me some things I wanted to hear and others I didn't. For one, if you're going to get cancer, prostate is one of the preferred forms. One out of every 36 men get it, but it's treatable if caught in time. So, they are re-testing my blood and urine and I will find out more next week. It's an anxious time obviously, waiting to find out. If my numbers are still the same, the next step will be a biopsy, that doesn't sound pleasant, but what is the alternative?

No one likes going to the doctor. They stick you with needles and prod you with other devices and it's never fun, but it's necessary. This recent scare makes me think of my late mother, Ann Veronica Johnson. In the mid 1960s, she got a diagnosis of breast cancer and she was so freaked out she didn't go back to the doctor until it was too late. They gave her a mastectomy, but the cancer had already spread and by 1966 she was gone. It was a bummer, because they didn't want my brother and I to visit her in the hospital toward the end, so I only got to see her probably twice during those last two years. I can't blame her--she was obviously scared and just wanted it to go away.

I still think of her literally every day. 

So, when I got this news last week, I promised myself that I would make every appointment and take this battle head on. I have lived a good life and I love my family and I have a supportive wife and wonderful friends and I don't plan on leaving the world any time soon. I have dodged a lot of bullets in my life (I used to be 350 lbs. and had a stroke in 2009, but I lost 120 lbs.), so hopefully I don't have cancer. I have been very anxious and can't wait to find out one way or another, but I'm in this to win it and ready to do whatever it takes.

We get happy and complacent in our lives, until fate throws you a wicked curveball, and then that's when we're tested. My therapy now is to write about it, because after all--I am a writer. As long as I can write, I will tell my story and I hope it doesn't depress people. Life is a miracle that all started when you beat the other thousands and thousands little sperm cells to the egg, so the odds were stacked against you from the beginning. I am hoping and praying to look back on this frightening moment several years from now and say, "Wow that was a scary ride, but it made me a better person and a better man."

-Ed