The Violence Behind My Silence This Time

A Tale of Accelerated Apocalypse, Part 1

It was quite the plot twist. A friend from way back in college days, whose second wedding I’d attended as best man, who’d given me the advice I followed on my first chapter of Bleeding Kansas that got my first novel off the ground, had taken ill and died in November. It was a completely freak thing. Still, I was nervous enough to schedule my usual physical and cancer screening for before Christmas, instead of waiting past the New Year as is my usual custom.

I was a shuddering wreck when I went in to have my blood drawn five days before Christmas. As the New Year came and became plain old 2018, I became more and more blasé about it. After all, what had happened to Steven was a completely freak thing. Given that my mother died at age 44 from colon cancer, and my father age at 52 from third stage non-Hodgins lymphoma, if anything was killing me it would have done so long before now. Given my record, I saw no reason for me not to live as long as my paternal grandmother, who made it all the way to 91.

When I got the call in mid-January telling me my PSA number was 10, meaning my prostate was three times its normal size, I assumed it was caused by nothing more than my underwear tightening as I gained weight last year. I bought bigger underwear. 

When things threaten to get a little too real, go into the cat photo folder.

Of course, I would have to see a urologist. I was told people have died with lower numbers than mine, and I didn’t doubt it. After a couple of weeks of desultory screwing around, I decided I’d bite the bullet and get an appointment at Fort Carson on the south end of Colorado Springs.

A three-hour ride, the midpoint through a high mountain pass, another hour waiting, and I saw the doctor. I learned nothing I didn’t already know. I had my blood drawn again for another PSA, and set up an appointment for a prostate biopsy, another month down the calendar. One almost had to laugh. If I had anything killing me, it had all the time in the world before we’d even get a look at what it was.

Before the biopsy, I learned that the second PSA number was 7. Now my prostate was only a little over twice as big. Score one for the Too-tight Underwear Theory.

Shot through a window screen, hence the odd visual effect.

March 23 was the day of the biopsy. It was also the day I got the idea that maybe it wasn’t a good idea to make the six-hour round trip alone. I got a brief blogpost out of it. Hard to believe that was more than three months ago already.

Posting is difficult when half your mind is somewhere else.

I had been told repeatedly I’d get a call within the next week, but I likely missed it. I get a lot of junk calls on my burner phone. I often wait to see if the caller leaves a voice message. Even so, since the beginning of this year, I’ve noticed the telemarketers leaving robotic messages, or tripping the voice mail without leaving any message at all.

My wife kept asking if I’d called them back to ask if I’d missed their call, and I was, ah, I’ll get around to it.

Sitting at my desk, Tuesday, 16 April — a day that will go down in infamy — I got the impulse to answer the phone when it rang, instead of looking at the number and clicking the mute button. It was the urologist himself. 

He’d been trying to get in touch with me personally because this was the kind of news a doctor gave personally. My wife broke down as she overheard me saying, “All right, so can I just get the thing cut out?”

To be continued (Part 2 right here if you're interested)....
Any contributions towards insurance co-pays, incidental expenses (those three hour drive to Colorado Springs), or maybe just a margarita for my long-suffering wife will be greatly appreciated. (Yes, that preceding block of text is the link.)