It Started with a Routine Physical: Part-Two

Please note: This story is published as a three-part series. The author is @patrick-boland, a ProstateCancer.net community member.

I was facing incredible pressure from all sides, and at that point, the diet was just background. I felt that I would at least be doing something while waiting through the interminable series of appointments and tests. The urologist, I never saw or spoke to again. I got a call from his office to speak to his associate, a young Taiwanese doctor who performed the surgeries for that group. I initially looked forward to this interview, but he soon dashed any hopes I had of hearing anything outside the western norm.

Surgery was my only option

He told me that at 51 years of age, neither radiation nor radioactive seed implants were practical. Surgery was my only option, and the sooner the better. His superior, he said, concurred, but he’s not proficient with the robot used to do this surgery. I surprised him when I asked him how many surgeries he had done, “23”, he said and I could see he immediately regretted it. I asked him what the chances were of arresting or reversing prostate cancer through diet and lifestyle changes. “Zero”, he said. But he refused to look me in the eye.

My third urologist

The pressure was mounting from doctors, family, friends, and coworkers. I didn’t trust either of these doctors and asked for a second opinion in the nearest “large” city. My third urologist is a very nice man, he sympathized with my described treatment, was much gentler during the DRE, but his consensus was the same. He assured me that prostate cancer is slow-growing and if I needed a few months to get used to the idea, it was not a problem. “Why don’t we get a CT scan and a bone scan before we go any farther”, he said, “ because if it’s already in your bones, game-over anyways.” I agreed to this, I instinctively knew that the longer I avoided any treatment the better off I’d be. I also asked him my stock question, “How many of these surgeries have you performed?” He was also startled by this question but mused, ”Let’s see, I usually do one every Tuesday and Thursday, sometimes 2 in a day but I don’t like to, 12 years in this practice, maybe around 400.”

Of course, as you might have guessed, it did not go smoothly. I got the call, have you ever had a broken rib, car accident, football injury? No, no, and no.” Well, we are seeing lesions on your ribs that we can’t explain, and the ribs are a place where prostate cancer likes to migrate to. ”Now what do we do”, I asked. "My answer is the same", he said, "remove the prostate." As a urologist, his responsibility ends at the prostate, IF I have bone cancer, off to an oncologist I go. I reminded him of his “in bones, game-over” comment and asked him if I’m going to die of bone cancer anyway, why would I want to do it without my prostate? His reply, “At least we’ll be doing something.”

Anger sets in

I’m starting to get more than a little angry now. I demand an audience with a real-life oncologist, a cancer specialist. Another pleasant young doctor, who has been instructed, he tells me, by his receptionist, to “Take good care of him, he’s the only mechanic I trust.” He listens to my tale of woe, examines my images. His consensus, “We don’t know. We could biopsy the rib bone, but it would be inconclusive, there’s no way to tell if we’re getting the right spot.” What do you think I should do, I asked him. “Whatever your urologist tells you.” Goodbye and thanks for nothing!

Stess, stress, lonliness

By this time I’m about 6 months in. I have now lost 75 pounds. I feel great. At one point my PSA is down to 5. My family and coworkers are quite sure I’m dying. I catch my wife putting cooked leftover chicken in my soup. Our relationship has turned rocky. She is a full-blown alcoholic, who does not appreciate losing her drinking partner. Her father has survived conventional treatment for throat cancer, which of course makes the whole family experts. I still doubt myself, wondering if I’m really doing the right thing. Stress, stress, loneliness.

Lifestyle changes & a rocky relationship

But I’m sticking to my guns, eating only vegan, no coffee, no fruit. The divorce is now in the works, it was during this period that my wife developed Wernicke syndrome, a disease of alcoholics when the body can no longer process its nutrition. I gave her an ultimatum, quit drinking or I’m leaving. That lasted about 6 weeks, I’m sure she cheated sooner, but it is clear to me that she is not interested in quitting. I am paying all the bills, she has no job or income. I am supplying her with booze and cigarettes, hell, hand-delivered. I just can’t be a part of it anymore. I cut off her money. She sold some timber off the property, $800 for three trees. There are a lot of trees on the property. This won’t work either.

So I leave her. Cash in half my retirement, pay her 12,000 cash, agree to pay off the last three years of her mortgage. Buy a rambling, decrepit, foreclosed zombie of a house. During the period of searching for a new residence, I had a divine epiphany, while having lunch one day with my mother. She was hobbling around her upstairs apartment and asked me to take down the trash when I left. Mom had been widowed since 1989, 20 years of grief and loneliness after Dad's premature passing at age 55. A brain aneurism took him, no doubt caused by hypertension. But it became instantly clear to me that this new, independent chapter of my life was going to include making a new home with my mother.

New house, historic distractions

The new house was a turn of the century box, with an addition joining an old barn to the house in the teens, then a slab addition with an attached garage put on one side in the 1970s. This would have been the homes glory years, the concrete work also boasted an in-ground pool. Of course, by the time it came to me, the pool was long gone, filled in, only a lonely lap of concrete walk around and the diving board supports, permanently encased at one end. The village boasts an old sulfur spring, and a water cure/spa was the basis of its growth. Someone back in the mid-1850s decided that sick people who lived in cities would benefit from fresh air, sunshine, hot baths, and fresh locally grown whole foods. The spa later morphed into a modern hospital, and in the ’70s a new hospital was built behind the original building. My backyard overlooks the rear parking lot, I can hit the emergency room doors with a well-placed stone.

The house itself is interesting because a man who was somewhat of an invalid himself built the home after spending time at the spa. He saw a need for the education and rehabilitation of patients who come out of the hospital and whose injuries or sickness required them to learn different skills. His home (now mine), was the birthplace of the American Occupational Therapy Association in 1917. Cosmic, karmic.

Finish reading Patrick's story, It Started With a Routine Physical: Part-Three.