The Fear Grenade

Today’s topic is a simple one, fear. When you receive a diagnosis that you have cancer in any form, there is fear. We, all those with a diagnosis have it.  Each of us has watched friends battle cancer, very valiantly. We have seen many of them succumb. As soon as the nurse at the facility performing the CAT scan Said to me, your doctor will call you perhaps today, I knew I was in trouble. I have never heard a lab tech give a definitive response after a benign test.  When the doctor’s nurse called later in the afternoon and said I had a tumor in my left kidney I was beside myself.

 Remind you I am not a newbie to this rodeo. 25 years ago, I was told that I probably had lung cancer. It took two or three weeks to get that resolved. During that time, I was crying and praying and nauseous and frightened out of my mind. I think I lost 10% of my bodyweight in sweat over those days. Turned out, it was just some pigeon shit I had inhaled 20 years earlier that had been encapsulated by my body as protective mechanisms for my lung. The phrase, sigh of relief, just doesn’t begin to cover it.

The next time I experienced this roller coaster was about 12 years ago my doctor noticed an uptick in my PSA. It didn’t even warrant further inquiry according to the standards of the time, but he was suspicious.  I was sodomized by the biopsy probe and received a call that simply said, “You have cancer”  

In the words of Spinal Tap my fear turned up to 11. The fear of prostate cancer is very visceral and two pronged. There are two fears when you’re diagnosed with prostate cancer. You are afraid that either you will die or that you’ll be on able to fuck again. In my personal experience the latter fear is the predominant one.

It took about a month to get around to the surgery It was only in the final week of waiting for the knife when the fear of pain or perhaps misadventure during the surgery took hold. But damn, it took hold. It shook me to my very core that I might die on the operating table. For the 10 days prior to the surgery I was sweating, my hands were shaking, I was losing weight and who knows my gums were probably bleeding.

I made it through the wrenching removal of my goo generator, and I am at a decade and two years cancer free from prostate cancer.  Of course, every year when it was time for my annual checkup, I grow nauseous and nervous and afraid that this would be the year they would find the recurrence of the prostate cancer. But it hasn’t happened.

This time I was here feeling some bladder irritation. I have twice now had them run the camera up the inside of my penis (not very pleasant indeed thank you very much) and take samples from inside my bladder. I wasn’t afraid either of those times. Neither of those times did they find cancer. But the fact that I kept feeling bladder irritation lead to a CAT scan.

The CAT scan found a small lump inside my left kidney. Nobody was looking for it, but there it was. The small lump lead to a biopsy.  The biopsy lead to a diagnosis of a slow growing stage one renal cancer and the need to have part or all my kidney removed. 

The fear is here again, and it is as real as I have ever felt fear.  I made the mistake while trying to figure out how the biopsy would work to click on one of the Web MD links. It took me to very informative site about how they would drill into my kidney. I also made the mistake of clicking on another hyperlink. Suddenly, I was looking at survival rates for renal cancer patients. The last time I had to vomit and empty my bowels at the same time I have the flu. This was fear on steroids.

 I met with the doctor shortly thereafter. The doc focused on encouraging me by telling of the cancer was small slow growing and he kept emphasizing stage one. “This is survivable”, he said.

Like any good patient facing major surgery I am seeking out a second opinion. And in seeking that opinion I must coordinate with my primary care doctor who I love and respect greatly. And in telling me how to prep for this visit he was talking about all the documents and things I had to gather, stuff for the next physician. It was then he made the offhand comment about really wanting to make sure we know that this was slow-moving and stage one. What?  Doctor one could be wrong? ARRRGGGH.

Boom, the fear was back.  However, don’t worry it is manageable. For most of the day I put the fear into a little box and stick it on a shelf in the back of my mind. Mostly, I throw myself into the activities of my everyday work life. If it my mind is active the fear does not play a trump card impacting my activity. But late at night when I’m lying in bed trying to sleep, the thought of what happens next in my life always pulls the string that opens the door leaving me looking face-to-face at the fear of cancer.

Perhaps other people have very different experiences of this. I am assuming some do. But for me this is how the term, “you may have cancer” pulls the pen on the fear grenade.

 

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