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When You Find Out What Really Counts
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On December 23rd, my life changed. I'm still trying to deal with what those changes will be, but I'm going to use this page to reflect and hopefully share those changes with anybody who might happen by. You see, in November I found out that I joined a rather large club--the club of people who contracted cancer. The invincible me, the one who disease and the Angel of Death would pass over, found out that I am as vulnerable as the rest. I have no special corner reserved for me. I'd visited people in the hospital who had cancer, and it was they who had the cancer, not me. I would always be able to visit them and tsk their misfortune and bless my own existence that would remian free of the burden. Well, God had another plan and that plan included bringing me back down to earth with the rest of humanity. For a man, prostate cancer carries especially frightening prospects, prospects that frankly I am still not aware of. Time will tell whether I spend my remaining years on earth not quite or significantly different from the first fifty-two. I'm in the eighth day of post-surgery, filled with all the wonder of the surgery and all the real pain that is associated with the results of being "cured," or at least temporarily rescued from the excecutioner. The inevitable will happen anayway. Well, when does the what really counts fit in? When the doctor told me that the pathology report came back clean, it sparked a sense of reprieve; the executioner's hand had been stayed. Now the question is, what will I do with the temporary gift of time?
It's now nearly two weeks since the surgery. The body's beginning to feel better to some degree. I don't have all functions yet. Cathy won't let me. She's there, a constant reminder that all is still not well, but that the sutures are healing. What will life be like without a prostate. For those who are curious, the prostate produces semen (the fluid that carries the sperm). Without a prostate, no semen. You can work out the realities from there. It changes the way that I look at my own sexuality--without bullets to shoot, what will the act feel like? That has yet to be tested and probably won't for at least another eight weeks. It's a questiopn of the libido. Will it have enough of the sexual energy and tension to make the activity seem worthwhile, or am I condemned to twenty or thirty years of nothing. I can't tell yet if I am turned on.
I'll explore that in these pages, and I'd like to hear your feedback.
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