It is STILL CANCER

Yup.  It has happened.  Some people, actually A LOT of people, don't know what to say to people that are in crisis.  I've been pelted with "It's JUST prostate cancer."  "Everyone survives THAT cancer."  "You don't have it as bad as other cancers."  And "It could be A LOT worse."

The truth is:  Any cancer is cancer and cancer kills.  31,620 men died from prostate cancer in 2018. If not diagnosed and treated early and correctly, prostate cancer is just as bad as other cancers.  And anything could be a lot worse, but really not much.  There really aren't many things worse than cancer.  Any cancer.  Seriously.

The thing about Prostate Cancer is that it is usually diagnosed in the later stages of life and usually diagnosed early.  And many forms of Prostate Cancer are very slow-growing.  Thus it doesn't seem quite as invasive as other forms of cancers.  Many elderly men succumb to other causes of death long before the prostate cancer takes over their bodies.

And it is OK.  I had the same thoughts.....JUST prostate cancer, UNTIL I was diagnosed myself.

I was about 35 years old when I first became aware of prostate cancer.  I knew that sometime as I aged, a doctor would want to do the digital rectal exam.  And finally that day came.  As part of a routine physical (probably for scouts) the doctor told me it was time.  "Drop your drawers and bend over that table........" as he put latex gloves on.  Just like in the movies.  He seemed way too eager to perform the procedure and the amount added to my bill for those ten seconds didn't impress me.  I switched doctors.

But it got the best of my curiosity and I at least started to pay attention to prostate and prostate cancer.  I quickly learned that it was an "old-man" disease that hardly anyone died from.  That when you get it, they simply cut the prostate out and boom!  All good again.  No more cancer.  No big deal.  JUST prostate cancer, right?

Just to break things up, here's a picture of an actual prostate after having been cut out of someone.

I had a friend just a few years back that was diagnosed with it.  He immediately had it cut out.  He was jubilant.  CANCER GONE!!  Cut out of me never to return!  He seemed to be doing fine and moving on with his life.

I had another older gentleman I served with in church.  He was out of commission for about six weeks and it finally came out that he prostate surgery due to cancer.  When he started showing back up to serve at church, he looked changed.  His countenance was gray.  He walked slower.  His jovial personality was now depressive and even cranky.  I chalked it up to probable complications.  Just cut the cancer out.  It couldn't be that bad of a procedure, right?

When my PSAs went up, I called my first friend to talk to him about it.  He said he was still doing well.  The cancer was gone.  No PSA reading.  Then I asked the big question.  By now my doctor had told me of all of the implications of a radical prostatectomy.  Impotence.  Incontinence.  Pain.  Weeks to a small recovery.  Years for a full recovery.  I asked my friend, "any regrets?"  There was a long pause, then he said "No.  The cancer is gone."  He also told me that "nothing works down there."

The long pause communicated loudly.

Shortly after being diagnosed, I joined a Facebook group of men and or their wives who are battling prostate cancer.  There are close to 10,000 people in the group.  It is a battle.  I've learned about all sorts of different treatment options first hand from folks who are living them, surviving them.  Mostly.  There are announcements of deaths regularly.  Several per week.  Death is imminent.

The largest topics are how to regain continence and the emotional pain of impotence.  Some of their wives have left them, which is as low a blow as you could get in this situation.

When I told my Urologist about the group, he said it was a group of victims, not survivors, and I'm reading the worst of the horror stories, not the stories of those who beat the cancer.  He said the survivors are not wasting their time on Facebook.  Boom!  Some truth to that.  But it is still real life, real live people, living and trying to beat cancer.

What I have learned from that group is that prostate cancer is just as devastating as any other cancer.  In its own ways.  You can live with it and eventually it will worsen and kill you (unless you die of something else first.)  Or you can have the surgery.  CANCER GONE!  Only except most of these men will tell you that it shows up somewhere else in the body many years later.  And then the fight becomes more like traditional (is there such a thing?) cancer including radiation, hormone therapy, chemotherapy.  JUST PROSTATE CANCER! Right.  Its just slow to kill, not fast like its brother, lung cancer.

Here's another picture just because I need one and this one is cute. They titled it "Cancer Heads."

A few weeks ago, I was worshiping in the temple when the adult version of one of my Boy Scouts from many years ago (OK, decades) came in.  We have lost touch and don't keep up, but we do recognize each other still.  And did this time too.  The greetings were amicable as always.  As he sat in the row in front of me, I wondered about his wife.  A few years ago I had heard she was diagnosed with some sort of horrible cancer and given a short time to live.  I wondered if she was still with us.

But then she walked into the ceremony room.  All dressed in white.  Some sort of knitted or crocheted hat on her bald cancer head.  She looked horrible.  Her skin was gray or worse and looked blotchy.  But yet she glowed.  She beamed a smile at others as she walked to near her husband.  Deathly sick, but there.  And happy.  As our eyes met the few times that night, she beamed me a smile too, even though I'm pretty sure she had no idea who I was.

The way she carried herself inspired me.  She had a power and yet a grace to her.  A definite survivor.  A miracle that she was even there.

After the meeting, my adult versioned scout was in the lobby waiting for her to come from the locker room.  Trying to continue the tradition of being the best Scoutmaster ever, I shook his hand strongly and told him he and his wife obviously were fighters and I was proud of them.  He took the compliment gratefully.

Later I thought her image in my mind would be me at some future point in time.  Her cancer struck quick and hard.  She has been fighting it for several years now.  Surviving with grace and a smile.

Mine hit slowly and almost invisibly with only an introduction because I blogged about it.  It moves slow.  If I face Chemo, it will be years, possibly decades, from now.

No matter the cancer, we all end up in the same place in the end.  And that is where we fight, or don't fight, to be at.

There is no JUST cancer.  There is no good cancer.  All cancer sucks.  All cancer demands a "fight or face death."  All cancer reacts to how we react.  Some make it, which usually is just an extension of life, while some just say "its my time" and slip away.  One of the rampant topics on the Facebook Group is "controlling my own ending" which really means having a suicide plan for when you decide you've had enough.  The idea is common and talked about like it is living room fodder.  Sad.

Cancer kills.  All cancers.  But today, I choose to live.