Seventy is the New Sixty -- Hogwash!
In previous blogs, I wrote about my journey with a diagnosis of prostate cancer. I even wrote a book, The Prostate Chronicles - A Medical Memoir which has been very successful as a catalyst for an irreverent discussion of this cancer that involves one in nine men. The good news is that many men do not die of prostate cancer.
Celebrating my eighth decade
I was diagnosed with T2C prostate cancer and had my prostate removed by the da Vinci robot operated by a young X-Box surgeon on August 30, 2018. In June of 2019, I celebrated my eighth decade turning seventy by going to the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, CA. My friends commented on how good I looked, blah, blah, blah. One friend blurted out that seventy is the new sixty! Hogwash was my retort.
At sixty, I didn’t have prostate cancer. My wife and I enjoyed a great life of intimacy, and I didn’t have to pee every twenty minutes. On the plus side, I was above ground and not pushing up daisies. I am a seventy year old prostate cancer survivor. So now I’m looking over the horizon at turning seventy-one, seventy-five, and yikes eighty!
I'm still anxious before every scan
Then the phone rings with a young nurse from my urologist’s office. Every six months, my anxiety increases with the call from my urologist to make an appointment for a High Velocity PSA blood test. This will be the fifth or sixth PSA test since the da Vinci Robot removed my prostate. Odds are I won’t roll snake eyes with the PSA test dice but there’s always a chance of recurrence.
Insurance worries and anxieties
It is a new decade and I will be seventy one in June. Yesterday, I reviewed my life insurance with my USAA. If seventy is the new sixty then why are my insurance premiums going up? At age seventy-one, my runway is much shorter, perhaps ten or fifteen years, so now I’m buying or converting life insurance, rolling the dice to ensure my wife, Karen is taken care should I pass into the great ether first. Then boom! It hits me and the anxiety meter goes off the charts. The “what ifs” are flowing a steady staccato of negative thoughts.
This is my new normal
It has been a wet winter in North Texas, so golf and especially Pickleball have been put on hold. On several sunny days last month, I made it to the courts. My Pickleball peeps welcome me back and always ask if everything is “normal”. The reality is that it is not normal but the alternative is much worse. I have my mind, my free will, my faith in God and especially a supportive loving wife dealing with her mother’s failing health. My parents passed a few years ago but I can do nothing to ease her pain of impending loss. So, no, I am not normal, but thanks for asking.
I call the nurse and make the appointment for the PSA bloodletting 30 days from today, as the “new sixty” rolls along into a new decade.
What is your experience? Tell us your thoughts in the comments!
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