What NOT To Ask The Urologist...

After my recent setback at the oncologist office, I was not looking forward to my urology visit.  OK, no one ever looks forward to their urology visit, not even the urologist (I mean, who wants to look at that all day long?).   However, I was looking forward to it even less this time.
For anyone that hasn't had a urology appointment this is how a typical urology visit goes.  No matter when you have been there last, there will always be an additional 312 pieces of paperwork to fill out, most of them involve digging through your wallet for various insurance cards, IDs, addresses of estranged relatives, etc.  Right in the middle of the paperwork, they will call you back up to the counter and give you a cup.  This is not for drinking out of, even though it is already personalized with your name on it.  So then, you have to figure out what to do with all the contents of your billfold that are spread on the seat next to you to fill out page 188, paragragh H, subsection 22.3.1 of the form verifying that you read the Paperwork Reduction Act, while you go off to fill the cup.
Once in the restroom one of two things will happen.  It doesn't matter how much you have "studied" for your urine test, there will still only be these two options.  Option one, you stand there awkwardly with the cup in one hand, and..."it" in the other, like two gunslingers at high noon staring down each other, neither one willing to draw first.  You will stay like this for 30-45 minutes waiting for the flow to begin, which will happen precisely when you hear the nurse out in the waiting room calling your name.  Or the only other possibility is you start going immediately and your volume of output is approximately the  same gallons per minute rate of Lake Erie flowing into Niagara, which is all well and good, until you realize you are holding a cup with the capacity to hold the juice from a single grape.  At this point you have to decide, are you going to overflow on your hand or spray all over the room trying to set the cup down midstream.  These are the only two outcomes to the second situation.  Don't try to be a hero and think that you can pull off some great acrobatic move to save the sample and also keep the floor dry.  That kind of cavalier attitude will only result in wet clothes and/or soggy paperwork.
Once you have been called back to the doctor's office, you will remain sequestered there for roughly two and a half hours.  Around you will be pictures of kidney stones resembling medieval weapons...except with more spikes, disgusting diagrams of every genital malady known to man (and some animals), and cutaway anatomical models of sex organs that will make you never want to have sex again.  You will sit here alone in the Office of Horrors until you finally get the urge to pee because you drank too much water for the "cup" and as soon as you pull out your phone to try to get your mind off of your situation, the doctor will walk in and assume you are taking pictures of the plastic cutaway penis.
It is at this time, the doctor will ask you questions having nothing to do with why you are there. "Do you have to urinate more frequently at night if there is a full moon?  Have you ever tried to scratch the back of your knee with your elbow?  Do penguins sweat?  Do you like gladiator movies?" And if you are lucky, you drop your pants, get a quick slap and tickle, pull up your pants, and get charged a couple hundred dollars.  However, I am going to issue a warning!!!
If you have a serious concern, by all means, now is the time to ask the doc about it.  After all, it was my own insistence, after the nurse missed my cancer initially, that resulted in my cancer diagnosis.  Other than that I have found the best thing to do is DO NOT ASK THE UROLOGIST ANY QUESTIONS!!!  See, if it's time for a prostate exam, it's an important part of a male's health and we all need to unpucker and endure it.  However, any added information or question for some reason results in a bonus prostate exam.  I don't know if they get paid more per violation, or all the doctors have a bet, or what, but every question results in a buttsploration.  "Doc, is it normal for your urine to be a little darker if you have been sweating a lot on a hot day?" DROP YOUR PANTS AND BEND YOUR KNEES!  "Doctor, is just waking up once a week in the middle of the night to pee excessive?"  HERE COMES THE BIRDIE!!  "How's your golf swing coming, doc?"  KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR BALL AND GET READY FOR THE FOLLOW THROUGH!!!!
It was for this reason that I decided NOT to ask when I would be done visiting him.  After all, every other time I had been asked, I was always told that I would have to see him for the rest of my life, and the next thing I would hear is the snap of a rubber glove behind me.  So as I my freshly lubricated buttocks swished their way to the front desk to make my next appointment, I was pleasantly surprised to be told that I wouldn't need to come back unless there was a problem!  After all, I had already been devastated by the news a couple months earlier that I was not being released by the oncologist when originally planned.  It seemed that following months of bad news from doctors, I finally heard something I wanted to hear...even if I was walking funny.
Now I just want to clarify one thing here, testicular exams and prostate exams are very important, and there is a peace of mind that one has after clear test (well, that comes after the initial shock).  And even though I was released from my urologist I will continue to do self exams (testicular self exam, I am not flexible enough for the other) and will still be getting the scheduled exams from my family doctor, oncologist, dentist, butcher, and anyone else with a white coat on (at least it seems that way sometimes).  But for now I can relax...without being told to relax and bend over...and celebrate graduating from one doctor and hopefully being that much closer to being a considered a cancer survivor and not a cancer patient.

Back To Normal Levels After Testicular Cancer

One of the things many people worry about as they undergo treatment for testicular cancer is how will this affect them afterwards?  Well, I finally received my answer.

One thing I was worried about was testosterone levels.  One of my nurse friends said it would be good to have lower testosterone levels because it would decrease my future cancer risks.  However, commercials are constantly pointing out how my becoming a fat, lazy slob as I get older has nothing to do with me being a fat lazy slob, but low testosterone (that they would be able to fix).  Feeling like I was in a "damned if I do..." position I asked my urologist about it.  I was told that high testosterone doesn't increase the chance of prostate cancer, but it makes it grow faster if you do get it.  And low testosterone may make you more inclined to be a fat, lazy slob, but it doesn't really cause any health problems on its own (being a fat, lazy slob does though).  Worried that my levels would be half, he told me how most duplicated organs aren't working 100%  all the time anyway.  That is why people with one lung or kidney can still function, because the remaining one turns it up a little.  After going through a bunch more explanation in doctor talk which I kinda blanked out on, we decided to test my testosterone and the results came back that I was at normal levels.  So, I have to blame being a fat, lazy slob on something else...like the lack of global warming in my area making it too cold to go outside.

Recently, my wife went to her "female doctor" and somehow came home with an appointment for me!  I get enough doctors' appointments scheduled on my own without having to do someone else's homework too.  Anyway, I was told to go back to the Jerkatorium (official doctor lingo for a sperm bank) and see what my levels were, just in case we ever want to have another kid, which I am told we aren't having, but do this just in case we change our minds one day, which isn't up to me anyway, and it is always a woman's prerogative to change her mind so I should just keep my mouth shut...or something like that.  I will spare you the details of the inner workings of the Jerkatorium, because I have previously written about that.  But what I did find disturbing this time was the addition to the "library" of DVD "aids".  While carefully pushing them around trying my best not to actually touch anything in there, (because after all I know what people do in that room because I was about to do it) I noticed most of the DVD cases were empty.  I wish I could immediately decontaminate everything I am wearing as soon as I leave that room, so it certainly would never cross my mind that I should grab a integral part of the functioning of this room and bring it home with me.  Ewww!  Anyway, we will just fast forward to the results.  That came back saying I was normal too!  Not normal for a testicular cancer survivor, but normal for a normal person...assuming normal people go into a room, look at dirty magazines, leave their business on the counter, and occasionally steal DVDs.

So the moral of the story is, don't steal from the Jerkatorium because you DO know where that stuff has been....NOOO, that's not the moral of the story!  The moral is, not only is testicular cancer a very survivable cancer, but you can regain your normal life back.  You won't be half a man.  You can still have normal levels of testosterone and swimmers, and even if your tests results don't come back normal, you can easily fix the testosterone levels, and if you froze your swimmers like I did before surgery, you can still have children or use it for disgusting pranks to put on YouTube and none of your friends will ever eat or drink anything at your house again.

And there are even some positives of being part of the One Nut Club!  I will close with this Top 10 List:

Top 10 Benefits of Only Having One Testicle

10  You only have to manscape half as much (if you are a manscaper).
9  When you test your levels, you health insurance company is actually paying for you to look at porn!
8  You have more room in your underwear.
7  Not as much to get sweaty down there.
6  People are afraid to use the phrase "Don't go off half cocked" around you.
5  When it is really cold out you can say "I am freezing my ball off!"
4  When your toddler is flailing around like a twerking jellyfish, your chances of getting hit in the nuts just dropped by 50% (anecdotal evidence).
3  Your self exams are done in half the time.  Don't forget to do them!
2  You can make the comment "I would give my right (or left) nut for ______"  then you could offer to go get it from the surgeon.
1  When you wear Speedos you only have to worry about stuff slipping out on one side. 

My First Father's Day

Well if you weren't able to guess already, we were able to get pregnant.  The swimmers we had frozen before I had chemo apparently thawed out just fine.  However, my "friends" (and I use that term rather loosely) were quick to point out that they could have given me any sample and I wouldn't know the difference until the baby comes out.  After all, you go the the "bank" they give you just a regular insulated coffee mug with a little test tube inside with your name on it.  It seems like for as much as we paid for me to look at their dirty magazines and practice a little self abuse, they would come up with something a little nicer than some cheap looking insulated coffee mug like you get at trade shows for free from vendors you never heard of.

We were actually visiting at my parents' house when we found out the swimmers reached their target.  My parents were overjoyed, which is surprising because people normally have totally different reactions if somebody shoves a urine soaked stick in their face.  It was at this point that it dawned on me that I don't know nothing about birthing no babies.  The coming months were filled with me cramming my head with everything from how to change diapers to how every single thing your child touches, eats, sees, smells, and hears will do irreparable damage to it and make you a bad parent.  So, I will admit, I am one of those parents who is double checking every little thing that comes near my child to make sure it has passed a thirty-four step inspection.

The other thing I didn't know about babies, was apparently you need approximately 43,560 square feet to hold all the items that your new baby will absolutely not be able to live without, use once, then outgrow, and need to be stored for any future babies.  And while we are discussing things I didn't know, when you are buying stuff for a new baby, everything made previous to the point that you arrived at the cash register at the baby store, is very dangerous and should be burned and the ashes locked in a safe and the safe thrown in the ocean (safes are located in Aisle 4 and you don't want to get a used safe).  Personally, I think the baby industry (and there is definitely a baby industry) and the Consumer Product Safety Commission get together twice a week to declare everything that babies had before now, is harmful and must not be used under any conditions.  Which makes perfect sense, otherwise all those cribs, highchairs, and bottles we all grew up on, and apparently survived, would still be in use today, meaning we would not need to buy new ones.  When you tell people you are going out to purchase said new products many older people (i.e. people that bought baby products last year) will say "you can just borrow mine" and you respond "they (whoever that is made up of) say that is unsafe now" and the response is "well it never hurt (insert name here)".

We went through all of the doctors' appointments where you listen to sounds that mimic a cow trotting through mud and pictures that look more like a black and white radar scan of an approaching cold front than any sort of mammal, but yet you still get choked up and excited.  And then there is the time that you stare at the screen, trying to see if the jet stream is going to cause a Nor'Easter when the nurse looks at you and smiles and says that "jet stream" is actually a penis.  Oh the feeling that goes through a future dad when he first sees his son's jet stream.  Already I was thinking of all of the tools I would be buying him and all of the time we would spend working on cars together (although, that probably would have been the case if we were having a girl too).

I will admit, as the big day approached I got more scanxiety even if a scan wasn't imminent.  I had waited so long for a child that I was so paranoid something bad would happen before I would be able to meet him.  And let's face it, less than a year before, I had lost my job, got cancer, and we had a miscarriage in a matter of a couple of months, so I am not unfamiliar with bad luck.  But after a lot of anxiousness and praying we finally were told to check into the hospital.

For anyone unfamiliar with labor, I will try to explain what happens.  You rush to the hospital where your wife seems to be in a lot of pain and there is a lot going on, but on the outside nothing really seems to be happening.  While all this is going on, every single person that is on your hospital floor will walk into your room, shove his or her hand underneath your wife's gown and loudly shout out a random measurement ("6 cm!", "80%!!", "10/6!", "less than 12 parsecs!!").  I think even the kid that delivered our food shouted out "THX1138!" before she left.  All I know about these random numbers and measurements was the baby was still bigger than that.  So, after close to a day of "labor" that only seemed to produce an exhausted wife and goop that I wasn't sure was pre-baby goop or left over lube from the constant measuring, the doctor gets down and looks like she is trying loosen an oil filter on a Honda and says,"Well, he's not going to fit, but you can still push for another hour if you want."  Although I liked our doctors there, that has to be one of the dumbest statements I have ever heard in my life!  As you can imagine, my wife was over the whole push-measure-push-lube-push-measure-measure-measure-push routine.  So it was off to surgery.

I walk into the operating room after they had prepped my wife and I see her laid out on a table, tubes here and there, a curtain, and a line drawn across her stomach.  The doctor said, "You can stand here on this side of the curtain as we cut or..."  I don't remember anything after the "or" because I really didn't care what was on the other side of the curtain as long as I was on that side of it.  I was even more glad I had chose that side after the procedure started.  I don't know what they were doing on their side of the curtain, but on my side of the curtain my wife was being pushed and shoved around on the table like she was the little girl from the Exorcist (minus the head spinning around).  Finally the shaking stopped and they walked around the side of the curtain with...a purple baby.  The comments my "friends" made about switched samples are running through my head and I search my memory for any purple family members (although there was that one distant aunt...), but after a quick wipe down he became the most beautiful, non-purple baby I have ever seen.  Any doubts of grabbing the wrong coffee mug at the sperm bank, were gone for good when one pediatrician at the hospital told us that our new baby was tongue-tied and this would lead to a lifetime of speech impediments, difficulty eating, crossed eyes, sloppy trumpet playing, inability to make friends, receding hairline...basically he was going to turn out like Quasimodo without the musical ability.  This caused a huge smile on my wife's face and mine.  Not because we wanted my son subjected to a lifetime of being a social pariah, but because I am tongue-tied and although sometimes I may have the problems the doctor foretold, it is not from being tongue-tied.  It was like a little sign from God saying "See, now you know for sure he is your son."

In fact, I think every single part of that experience was a blessing.  I used to think Father's Day was just another holiday where you give people stuff (or realize you forgot to buy stuff to give to people until the last minute).  But today I have had to hide my emotions as I played with my son, thinking about how much happened to get him here and how hard I am going to fight to be around as he grows up.  And one last thing on being a father after having testicular cancer/chemo, the procedures and processes involved in making this happen are very expensive.  I had contacted Livestrong during our efforts and received a long list of organizations willing to help make our miracle happen, many of them offering their services for free.  The earlier you contact these organizations the better, as many want to help from the very start.  Luckily for us, we were able to have our miracle without needing to use these organizations.  But, we are keeping all of the doctors' bills to show him anytime he asks for anything expensive.

Cancer Made Me Fat And Apparently Fat People Sweat A Lot

OK, so I guess cancer didn't directly make me fat, but it certainly helped me pack on some pounds.  Between the inactivity following my surgery, the inactivity following chemotherapy, and the fact that my chemo taste change didn't effect my love for all stuff fattening, I have gained weight.

I realized this has become a problem when my wife punched me in the middle of the night, ripped the blankets off my previously slumbering body and said, "You're sweating on the clean sheets."  We do have other sheets, and I could even wash them every single day, but she thought all of these things through and decided assaulting a sleeping cancer patient was the best course of action.

While hurting myself mowing the lawn the other day, I noticed I seemed to be sweating more than I had in the past.  I first attributed that to my high metabolism and my well toned body, then I realized I didn't have either one.  And it seems just about anything can cause me to break a sweat anymore, cleaning around the house, working around outside, walking the dogs on a hot sunny day, walking the dogs on a cold rainy day, walking up the stairs to get a Little Debbie, eating a Little Debbie, thinking about eating Little Debbies, typing "Little Debbie", and apparently sleeping.

There seem to be another side effect to my recent weight gain as well, my hypoglycemia seems to be getting worse.  This is a condition where my sugar will drop and I have to...well find something with sugar.  They make glucose tablets designed to get the sugar back into your system quickly, and you would think something made to shoot up your sugar would be made at least remotely sweet tasting, but it really taste like compressed baby powder, except drier.  This hasn't been a problem until I started getting more and more active lately.  Apparently your sugar doesn't drop when you sit around all day ingesting sugar.  Seeing some of the weird things people get disability payments for these days, I wonder if I can get the government to pay me to sit around all day ingesting sugary goodness...and maybe even pay for my sugary goodness as well.

But therein lies the irony in my whole situation.  I want to get more fit and be more active, which causes me to hurt myself, which causes me to be less active.  So, to make up for that, I try to eat healthier and avoid sugary stuff, which causes my sugar to nosedive, which forces me to eat more sugary stuff.  You see my dilemma.  I can't complain too much though, if the worst lingering effect of beating cancer is having to sit around on my rump eating Little Debbies and sweating.  But if I didn't complain about something, I wouldn't have anything to write about today.  So, here I am feeling a little better, but recovering a little slower.  Luckily I don't have any pressing projects anytime soon that will require me to exert myself too much and we have a large stash of crappy food to keep my sugar levels up.  I guess life ain't too bad after all.

I Did, I Did, I Did Hurt Myself...

I sat around yesterday, glad that the rain that threatened off and on was around, it gave me a great excuse to avoid re-ripping my incision/mowing the ditch.  Everything was going well until late afternoon, when I saw the sun poke out and illuminate the ditch in all its glorious overgrownedness.  In a moment of extreme enthusiasm and lack of clarity, I decide to rush out, grab the push mower, and hurt myself.

The push mower has not been started since before my surgery, sometime in August.  Of all the possible scenarios I ran in my mind on how to hurt myself, the one I forgot about was trying to start a push mower.  I pulled the cord...and pulled the cord...and pulled the cord...pulled the cord...pulled the cord...pulled my incision...pulled the cord, with each pull I came a little closer to ripping my incision and the mower got no closer to starting.  Even though I only have one testicle, I have enough testosterone to realize, if something doesn't work, you can always pour gas in it.  Which is exactly what I did, and the mower started right up...in my workshop.  But at least I knew that the mower starts.  I loaded it up with the lawn tractor, and headed down to the ditch.  I brought along my "whacking stick" which I use for chopping limbs (of trees...so far), hacking up rogue snakes (FYI, all snakes are rogue), and using for leverage/stability as I drop the mower off the side of the cliff we call a ditch.  I don't know how to describe exactly what this tool is.  It's about five feet long, and has a sharp hooked blade, which may have been an old way to harvest corn, or chase teenagers through fields while wearing a white William Shatner mask, or to run after Dr. Frankenstein's monster.  Today it was also used as a cane.

I went to the top of the hill over looked the ditch and pulled the cord...pulled the cord...pulled the cord...pulled a muscle...pulled the cord.  Luckily, I brought down a gas can with me so I used the whacking stick as a screwdriver to take off the breather and poured some more gas into the beast.  The next pull, she roared to life.  I was dreading pushing the mower over the edge, because that meant I had to pull it back up again.  I slowly lowered it down, leaning heavily on the whacking stick, the mower started sputtering due to the extreme angle, and I started sputtering due to being fat and lazy for several months.  Each pass, I struggled with lowering it down and pulling it up, while jamming the whacking stick in to the ground and using it to help pull the mower back up again.  This was working fine, but I forgot one thing about living in the country, people (as in everyone that drives by) wave at you, and it's just not neighborly to not wave back.  So in the midst of this delicate balancing act of using one hand to lower the mower down and the other hand death gripping the whacking stick, I have to pause to wave at every car that came by (because they waved at me) and apparently I-70 was shut down and rerouted on our road.

Eventually, I finished the hardest physical part, next I had to mow near the road.  When mowing near the road, you not only have to look down for snakes to whack, but you have to be aware of traffic coming from the left and the right, and since we live at a "T" in the road, you also have to look out for traffic coming directly at your back.  I know what you are thing, if I am mowing the ditch, why am I worried about traffic on the road?  Well, several reasons, farm machinery is wider that your average car, so you have to be wary of it hanging over the side of the road, or cars avoiding oversized farm machinery and hanging over the side of the road, plus I frequently have to back into the road to mow this part, and I also have to mow around all the tire tracks IN OUR DITCH so obviously someone has managed to drive exactly where I am mowing before!

I have several theories as to why people drive in our ditch.  Some just misjudge the curve and come around there way too fast.  And this particular intersection is a one and a half way stop.  There is one regular stop sign, and one "Stop Except When Turning Right" sign (which in every other state is just a "Yield") and the third way you don't have to stop no matter which way you're turning.  This leads to confusion and thereby most people treat is as a What-Stop-Sign? intersection, leading to a lot of squealing and swerving around oncoming traffic.  There also tend to be a lot of drunks that like to run into the ditch and sometimes for fun, ram the electricity pole.  And finally I think a lot of people are just so busy looking for people to wave to that they don't pay attention to where they are going and run off the road.

So here I am, looking down for snakes to whack, looking left, looking right, looking behind me, looking up (because I don't want to be surprised by SEAL Team VI), pushing the mower with one arm, pulling on my whacking stick with the other arm, and waving at anything that moves.  I was about three quarters done when I started to feel that familiar "tug" down below.  No not my bowels, that was earlier, I am talking about my incision tugging to warn me that it doesn't like what I am doing and it threating to let loose.  So, after getting this obvious warning sign, I did what all men would do and decided the best thing to do would be to stop, leave the rest and go in and take it easy.  I did, I really did decide that would be the best thing, but I still kept mowing until I finished.  It was about this time that my wife and mother-in-law came back from the cemetery, or store, or family Catholic event, or where ever they were and I saw them stop in the driveway way away from where I was mowing and wait to talk to me.  Now it was pretty obvious that I was doing something, and it was also pretty obvious that whatever they had been doing previously, they were now sitting in an air conditioned car.  Since they were waiting for me to stop what I was doing, walk from the edge of the yard to the driveway (which I estimate is a walk of approximately ten miles, or at least that's what it feels like when you have been mowing, waving, and keeping your insides from spilling out), I once again used my superior Man Reasoning Abilities and decide to ignore them and keep mowing.  I finally finished the mowing and much like how a marathon winner will collapse as he/she crosses the finish line with tears of joy running down their face, I fell back on to the lawn tractor and let out a very manly man-whimper.

As soon as I stopped, I could tell that my incision wasn't doing well, and I had planned to just sit on the couch the rest of the night and hold my crotch, something that seemed to make even more sense now that I pulled my incision.  Then my wife came down and asked if I would go with her to Wal-mart.  For some reason I said "yes".  I think I said "yes" because she said we were only going for two things, and I forgot in Wal-mart Speak, two things is actually forty-seven things that we will grab them by alternately criss-crossing the full length of the store approximately eighty-three times.  I don't know how the math works out on that, I just know that's what happens.

So, for the rest of last night and all of today, I have been limping around holding my side, like that is actually helping at all, but since that is the only thing I can think to do, I keep doing it.  The good news is that I didn't push myself to the "pop" just the tug.  So I hope this will all be better soon.  And if nothing else, I can use this for leverage next time someone wants me to mow the lawn.

Summer's Here, Time To Hurt Yourself!

The past couple of days, I have had every intention of hurting myself.  No not in one of those cries for help sort of ways, but just in pushing my self more and more to get back to normal.  I still haven't tackled the dangling a push mower down the ditch yet.  I am really afraid that may undo all the healing I have been doing, so when I do finally get around to attempting it, I will do it as gingerly as one can dangle a push mower down a ditch without simultaneously chopping off body parts.  Just the fact that the engine starts to cut out because the mower is at such an extreme angle that it can't get gas, shows that maybe this isn't a recommended use of this particular mower.

However, that wasn't a problem yesterday.  I had intended to do it, but secretly hoped something would come up to keep me from having to do it, and luckily plenty of things did.  I spent some of the early part of the day helping my good friend with the project we are tackling.  After that I waited for a HVAC company that claims "1 hour service" to call me back....that's been about 36 hours ago, and I am still waiting for a call back on the message I left.  The reason, our thermostat decided that when the air conditioner kicks on, the house will cool down like it is supposed to, but the temperature reading will go UP!  And that keeps the air conditioner on.  You notice this when you look at the thermostat and it reads 87, while the other thermometer in the house reads 72 (and that is the real disparity in numbers we had when we first noticed the problem).  A little research on the company turned up information that all electronic thermostats from this particular company do this.  I won't mention their name because I don't want to embarrass Honeywell.  I finally called in to our HVAC company through a different line (not a repair line) and asked them if they could fix this.  They said yes they would replace it...in five days.  I asked if they carried any other brands than the one they installed and they didn't.  Frustrated I decided to runaway from the problem and went out to mow some of the muddy areas of the yard with the riding mower.

Now our mower is an commercial grade mower that we had to buy because someone keeps running into stuff bending the deck on regular mowers.  I won't say who that someone is, but it's not me and it's probably my wife.  Because of this, the mower weighs 1400 lbs. (about 650Kg) and because of its massive weight it gets stuck if there is any amount of moisture on the ground.  While attempting to mow the parts of the yard that were too wet before, I hit a puddle or moss or gnat pee, whatever it was, the mower became hopelessly stuck.  Now for reasons that I won't go into right now, I am the only one currently able to run this mower, so there was no one to drive the mower while I attempted to pull it out.  So I did one any red blooded American male would do that has a Jeep and at least one ball (which I barely qualify for), I hooked up the Jeep and dropped it in four wheel drive low and jerked the crap out of it.  You may have seen in the news where the day was .25 seconds shorter yesterday, that's because the massive torque of my Jeep pulling out this mower actually stopped the Earth's rotation for a brief moment.  After these shenanigans were done, it was pretty much too late to attempt the ditch mowing/incision ripping yesterday.

So today I got up and went to a hardware store to find a thermostat that didn't have "Honeywell" stamped on it.  I found one and then had to pick up a bag of concrete for another project we are doing.  I found the correct type of concrete (for the record, there are approximately 75 different types of concrete and no matter what your project, there will be exactly 1 (one) bag that kinda fits what you are needing to do, and it will be on a very high shelf).  I look straight at the bag...literally, because someone at Home Depot decided that this particular type of concrete needed to be about five feet in the air, and it dawned on me as I read "80 lbs." on the side of the bag that:  A) I haven't lifted 80 lbs. since my surgery, I am officially supposed to be closer to 30lbs., and B) I can't bring the Jeep in to help me with this one.  I briefly thought about asking for help, but two things occurred to me:  1) Guys are not supposed to ask for any sort of help whatsoever in a hardware store unless it is a veiled attempt to prove they know more than the person they are talking to, and 2) I have about as much chance of finding and employee at Home Depot to help me as I do of finding the Loch Ness Monster, Elvis, Jimmy Hoffa, and  a regular cast member from Alf.  Now Andrea Elson did walk by while I was contemplating the next move, but without Elvis, Jimmy, and Nessie she wouldn't have been much help.  So I did what any self respecting guy would do, I picked up the bag anyway, rather than get help, and waited for the "pop" down below.  I firmly grabbed the bag and just as gracefully has a Olympic weight lifter clean and jerks 1000 lbs., I put the concrete in the cart...OK, it was less like an Olympic weight lifter and more like a out of shape fat guy struggling to lift more weight than he lifted in eight months (outside of Golden Corral) all the while trying not drag the bag (which they for some reason make out of paper just slightly thicker than tissue paper) over anything that might snag it, causing it to burst open cartoonishly burying my feet in 80 lbs. of concrete, while at the same time trying to keep me from bursting open cartoonishly burying my feet in a large pile of my intestines.  Unfortunately for the person watching me on the security camera I was able to load the concrete without any comic mishaps (yes, they actually have a sign in the concrete section pointing to the security camera, maybe that is a sign you are way understaffed if someone can grab an 80 lbs. bag of concrete and no one notices nor is able to catch someone fleeing with 80 lbs. of concrete).

Eventually, I made it home and the first thing I had to do, with the air conditioner running like an out of control Trane, was replace the thermostat.  The thermostat contains slightly more wires than the Space Shuttle, except with fewer directions.  After approximately 47 hours of cursing, reading, taking a Spanish course, reading the other manual, taking a Hindi course, calling tech support, and some Eeny Meeny Miney Mo, I was able to hook up the thermostat with a minimum amount of smoke and sparks.  As I was wrapping up, a large storm hit, effectively ending my mowing/stomach shredding/toe slicing plans for the day.

I don't know if the events keeping me from mowing the ditch are a bit of Divine Intervention or just me being lazy and slow, but I will welcome the postponements no matter what the reasons.  I just don't know what I am going to break to get out of it tomorrow...

There's More To Recovery Than Just Recovery...

Today I spent the morning with a good friend who is recovering from her own serious health condition.  We got into a conversation about how hard it is to recover from a serious illness, not necessarily physically but mentally as well.  There are so many aspects to recovery that get overlooked because caregivers are focused on, well recovery, but just physical.  The medical profession seems to think if they fixed your ailment, you're done.

One thing I noticed since my cancer diagnosis, is before I found out I had cancer, I did routine checks for testicular cancer.  I had a doctor in 1998 tell me it would be a good idea to check and I did the checks often, sometimes twice or more a day depending on how many other people were in the pool at the time, but every since I found the cancer, I hardly check.  The ironic thing is, I have about half as much to check after the cancer, so you would think it would be easier to check now.  However, I could probably count the times I have checked since then on one hand...not that hand the other one, the non-checking hand.  I don't know why, but I have developed an aversion to checking myself since I had actually found something.  Luckily, since I still manage to see one professional or another approximately every forty three minutes, I am getting checked enough right now by other people, so I don't need to worry about it, my family doctor, my urologist, my oncologist, my friend's overly curious dog, that TSA guy behind me in line at Arby's the other day, well at least I think it was a TSA uniform, or it could have been a bus driver's uniform, who ever it was he was very gentle and paid for my Arby-Q.  I brought this issue up at my cancer support group to see if any other of the self examiners had the same mental block after diagnosis, but unfortunately the breast cancer survivors weren't there that day.  There were a few prostate cancer survivors, but they didn't look flexible enough to perform self exams.

When down physically for so long, it takes a while to get back in the swing of things.  The doctors pretty much force you to be a couch potato through weight restrictions and other warnings of dyer consequences if you overexert.  After weeks, or even months, of continuously watching daytime TV, it's hard to get back into a routine of getting up, moving around, and even concentrating on anything that doesn't involve paternity testing, especially during Oprah's last season!  And even when you do start to move about and get braver and braver, there can be certain obstacles in your daily life that look insurmountable.  As part of my mowing routine, I have to dangle a push mower down a very steep embankment about five feet, pull it back up, and try to keep my toes out of the way the whole time I am struggling with it.  This is something that leaves me physically drained and crippled on a good day, I will admit, I am scared to death to do it when I still haven't been released to do that sort of thing from the doctor that performed my surgery.

Then there is just the mental recovery.  Believe it or not, you feel like your brain gets flabby from not being used while you were recovering.  I tried to keep my brain sharp by first reading Yahoo articles on-line, then working my way up to on-line versions of magazines, then newspapers, and even tried to read a few books on-line.  It was months into my recovery before I realized I had just been looking at porn the whole time, which I would stop, but I am not quite done with this article.  The point being, when you brain isn't working as hard as it had in the past, it takes a while to be able to stare at a computer screen for hours on end again (especially if there is no porn on that computer screen).

One last part of mental recovery I will mention, kinda relates to one of the first things I mentioned, and that is the fear that you are not quite well yet, or that it will come back.  There is a reason that until recently, oncologists would never use the word "cured" they would just say "remission".  I don't know that I will ever get over the fear that the cancer isn't quite gone, or that it's hiding somewhere else, or that it's just not big enough to show up on tests yet, or that it's lying dormant, or, or, or, or....with so much of cancer being an unknown, how do we as patients feel secure in our "cured" diagnoses?  And am I sure our families/caregivers/support networks have the same fears, whether they will verbalize them or not.

I guess in many ways, recovering  from a serious illness is like a "recovering alcoholic".  Sure, Bill W. never plans on having another drink, but he knows that threat is always lurking in the background.  In much the same way, I don't ever plan on having cancer again, but I know there is a possibility, however slight, that it  could be hiding somewhere.  Maybe I should do some more internet "reading" and a self-exam just to make sure there's no cancer left.

"If I Leave You It Doesn't Mean I Love You Any Less"

For the second day in a row I am starting off with a Warren Zevon quote.  While Warren was dying of mesothelioma he wrote a song to his wife with the line "if I leave you it doesn't mean I love you any less".  It was a touching line when I first heard it and a much more powerful line after my cancer diagnosis.  I think the first reaction when you are diagnosed, is to wonder if you are going to survive.  The second reaction is if you don't survive, what will that do to your family?  What a brilliantly simple way of expressing how we feel.  If cancer takes us, it doesn't mean that we want to go.

I "graduated" from the Wellness Community this week.  I won't say I am 100% over all of this stuff, heck for one thing I haven't officially been released from the urologist yet, but cancer is no longer the prevailing thought in my mind anymore.  Granted there are other things going on in my life right now that are taking my focus off that crap, which is a good thing.  I don't know if I would feel this far removed from cancer otherwise, but the point is I do and that's all that matters.  It's hard to believe my cancerversary is coming up in just a few months!

The Wellness Community and more importantly the people in my support group have been very...well supportive.  I was hoping there would be a big crowd there so I could say "bye", but there was only the facilitator and one other guy, who happened to be my favorite guy and the one that helped me the most.  This particular guy (without giving any identifying information, which is a no-no for a support group) has lived with cancer for literally decades.  Not a survivor, LIVED WITH CANCER as in still has cancer!  There is another in my group that has lived with cancer for about a decade as well.  Do you know how comforting that is to someone who just got diagnosed?   Even if you aren't cured, here is living proof that you can live with cancer and look like a normal non-cancer-having person!  And the thing I was most impressed with these two individuals was they were the most upbeat of the group.  They weren't cursing their maker or bitter at the world.  They were positive.  With just my favorite guy in my final meeting, I was able to spend a lot of time telling him just how important he has been to my emotional recovery.  I wish there were a couple of others there that I wanted to thank, but that's what e-mail is for.

Now to complain about my group for just one second.  One thing I did get off my chest was there was an incredibly negative individual that almost caused me to quit the group.  This person was CURED but didn't want to believe it and spent the whole meeting going on about how if you had cancer once it stays in you forever and it can pop up anytime, even if the doctor says you are in remission or even cured.  That is not something I wanted to be around just out of my surgery and facing chemotherapy.  Luckily, the lady from the No Boobs About It blog warned me that there is one of those people in every group, to just try to ignore them.  I am glad she told me that.  The only other complaint I have with my group (and people in general) sometimes when life looks the darkest, people give up on you.  Most cancer patients have ups and downs in their care, and some people in the group would start referring to people in the past tense that were struggling in their fight.  The whole time Monty Python and the Holy Grail was running through my head "I'm not dead yet..."  All of the people referred to in the past tense have gotten better!  Thank God (literally) that they had better outlooks on their own lives than some of their supporters.

But all in all, I loved the Wellness Community and the support everyone gave me.  I didn't really want to leave, but I didn't feel it was right for me to be there anymore, since I feel less and less like a cancer patient and more like a cancer survivor.  I wanted to thank everyone for what they did with a gift, however I couldn't just give gifts because I am still unemployed and don't have a lot of money flowing in right now.  I would have liked to cook something and bring it in (and let's just pretend for a moment that my cooking is tolerable) but when you are on chemo, you can be super sensitive to tastes and smells (I still won't touch pasta and shun salt, two things I enjoyed before chemo) so food is not even allowed inside the room we meet in.  So that left me with my favorite thing, music.

Not only have I worked extensively in music running record stores, as a club DJ, and even with a record company being required to hang out with rock stars for three years, but I have always used music to alter my mood and relate to others.  Back in the day, years before I even met my wife (if she is reading this) I would make mix tapes and CD's to open doors to hot girls that would inevitably ask for more CDs and less of me.  More recently, I boil my music collection to moods.  I have several CDs I put together just to keep me awake on roadtrips.  I have CDs I made to listen to just when I want to sing loud in the car with no one around.  I have a CD I made to listen to when you are in a pissed off mood (which I largely gathered from my wife's music collection, I don't know what that means, I'm just saying...).  And I have made CDs just to put me in a good mood.  So that is what I did, I made CDs for my group, happy CDs.  You know, songs that are just impossible to be sad while listening to, stuff like LFO's Summer Girls, Spice Girls' Wannabe, and Hanson's MmmBop...OK, I am lying, I like most people over the age of two and with most of their faculties hate those songs.  That was just a list of my sister's CD collection.  (The funny thing here, is I have to approve all comments before they are posted, so there is no way for her to refute this on my page.  But I am sure there will be retribution on hers.)  But I did put together a list of twenty songs from 1952 to the mid 1990s that just make you feel good.  I don't know if they will appreciate them or not, but even if they don't, at least I gave them a new shiny coaster.

So Thursday, Warren's lyrics held a different meaning to me.  I didn't want to leave the friendships, but it was time for me to leave the group.  And although I can't specifically identify people or illnesses, I will vaguely take a moment to say some "thank yous".  Thank you Bill for showing me how one person can face cancer and act like...well someone that doesn't have cancer.  Thank you Susan for having that magic folder where much like a Magic 8 Ball, you ask a question, you reach your hand in, and pull out a print out with the answer.  Thank you Ann for showing just how hard one human can fight, and still retain grace and dignity the whole time.  Thank you Cary for taking a bad situation and turning it around for something good.  And most of all thank you Ned, no doubt your family sacrificed a great deal for the benefit of so many others, and I will never be able to express my gratitude sufficiently.  And there are many others at the group that helped me, and I don't mean to play favorites here...but I am (did).  And it's not like anyone actually reads these anyway, so there is not really anyone to offend with an omission.  Even though I didn't place that Warren Zevon song (Keep Me In Your Heart For A While) on the CD I made, because although very poignant and beautiful it's also incredibly depressing, I graduate from and depart the Wellness Community with those words in my heart and mind, "If I leave you it doesn't mean I love you any less".

Taking A Houseplant, Worms, And My Wife On A Roadtrip

One of the things I have done for my wife in the past is take her on surprise trips.  In fact, my proposal to her was a surprise trip to Niagara Falls, where for the balance of the trip, rather than enjoy the beauty of the natural wonder, she stared at her recently acquired ring, studying to see if I remembered all the specifics she told me to make sure it had.  Since then I have surprised her with other trips like a trip to Holiday World (which has FREE Pepsi products!!!) and the Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, West Virginia.  OK, so the quality of the surprise trips has definitely been declining.  Anyway, a very good friend had offered me her lakeside cabin for the weekend.  I call it a cabin, but it is more the size of an Army barracks, except the cabin can sleep more people.

Two months ago I started planning this trip as a cool, cheap thing an unemployed cancer patient can do for his wife's birthday.  It required me to make all sorts of plans, cover stories, basenji babysitters, and secret acquisitions of everything from the keys to the place and groceries to worms (for fishing).  This kept me a lot busier than I had thought it would.  Everyday last week it seemed I was running around gathering stuff between the hours that my wife left for work and before she came home.  I had to run around, buy food and supplies, and get back into my regular lounging-around-the-house clothes by the time she got home so she wouldn't realize I was running around all day buying worms.

My plan went fairly well and she even bought my cover story, that we were going to see my grandma in the nursing home.  That story was actually too believable.  While I was mowing the lawn the night before our departure, my wife baked a fancy cake and bought a houseplant all for my dear grandma that we weren't actually going to see.  So, being the resourceful person that I am, since this trip was a surprise birthday trip, I grabbed some candles and decided she just baked her own birthday cake.  Now in the past, I have tricked family members into wrapping their own presents, this is the first time I had someone bake their own cake.

The good news is, my wife was happily surprised and not mad that she baked a fancy cake...for herself, and a cute houseplant got to go on a road trip.  The place we stayed was huge!  At first it was overwhelming and even deciding what bedroom to sleep in resulted in an hour long dilemma.  The irony was, that with this gigantic lake house at our disposal, we basically only really hung out in two rooms.  Even though the fishing was non-productive this weekend, I was able to sneak her favorite camera into the car, so what she didn't catch in fish, she made up for in pictures.

As for me, the topography surrounding a house built on a slope next to a lake and some in progress repairs on the front porch, compounded by the amount of stuff we had to haul in and out, really stressed my incision.  In my usual stubbornness, I didn't bother to take any precautions as I was rappelling down to the cabin from the car with loads of luggage and groceries...and worms.  After climbing up and down the hill, loading and unloading the car, and fishing, and just walking to the lake, luckily, I feel great.  So, even though this was a trip for my wife, it ended up being a boost for my own morale as well.  One more sign that this cancer stuff is getting further and further behind me.

So, I don't have to sneak around buying worms anymore, and I don't have to worry about all the people that were in on my wife's surprise trip slipping up and spilling the beans.  I did a bunch of stuff I shouldn't have physically this weekend, and I am none the worse for it.  Although with the storms, it wasn't the best trip, but it was still pretty good!

Ah, The Good Old Days When I Could Take Dimetapp...

After a week (or weak) of coughing, snorting, hacking, sniffling, wheezing, whining, blowing, gasping, and honking I think I have almost beaten this cold.  According to my wife I was just complaining and it wasn't that bad, until she caught it four days later.  I maintain, that if she would have taken better care of me, she wouldn't have gotten it.  However, since she just left me to flounder, I remained sick and infectious and she caught it from me.

I think the worst part of this cold or any cold, is when you start coughing without end.  Although a few blogs ago I was saying I finally felt like I was over my incision pain, I was coughing so bad a few days ago, I was afraid I was going to rip it back open again.  Luckily I didn't.

When the coughing started, I reached for my tried and tested Dimetapp Children's.  Not being able to take anything with any alcohol, this is my usual goto remedy for coughing and itchy throats.  However, I haven't taken any since I had chemo.  Tired from wiping, coughing, and spitting all day, I took the maximum dose of Dimetapp and laid down to enjoy a sound night of slumber.  Five hours later, I was still waiting for slumber, or at least for the monkeys in my head to quit typing.  OK, there were not any actual monkeys typing, but my mind was racing so much, it felt like there were approximately one thousand and two monkeys typing on old fashioned manual typewriters with worn out ribbons.  I don't know why it had to be worn out ribbons.  Maybe they weren't monkeys, they were gibbons and that is where I got the "ribbons" from.  Anyway, I couldn't concentrate on sleeping if that makes sense.

Ever since chemotherapy, anything with diphenhydramine (like Benadryl) instead of making me tired, makes me wide awake and has my mind racing.  I guess it's a good thing I've never done meth.  My mind would be racing and I would never get anything done from the diphenhydramine.  Meth addicts get a lot done right?  And diphenhydramine is one of the things they make meth with right?  Yup, it is, I just looked it up.  Now I am probably on some government list for looking it up.

Well, with the Dimetapp a failure, I was even sicker from not getting any sleep.  So, I slept all day and completely screwed up my sleep pattern, which helps in healing too.  Eventually, through the use of Lifesavers and Luden's I was able to make it through the sandpaper-against-the-back-of-the-throat days to now where I feel almost normal....for me.

The caveat is that now I have a coughing wife keeping me awake and a coughing basenji.  I know you are probably wondering why my dog is coughing, and frankly we are too.  My mother-in-law's theory is that she caught the cold from us.  Now while I don't think she caught our cold, I do think this basenji is hacking because of it.  Lately, she has had a smorgasbord of Kleenex's lying around.  Now before you say "Ooh, boogie eating dog!" I am not talking about used Kleenex's.  It's just that we have had boxes of Kleenex's within arm's reach of every flat/cushioned surface in the house, and that to Daisy the basenji is a lot like having a beer tap with mouth's reach of an alcoholic.  Because a Kleenex box works much like a beer tap, more just keeps magically appearing.

So, I don't think Daisy is coughing from a cold, I think she is coughing from eating several cases of Kleenex the past few days.  And although Kleenex may be a welcome relief on a runny nose, I can imagine it would tickle the back of your throat if you ate one, or a box.  At any rate, our vet didn't seem too worried, and just in case she gave us medicine to fix every possible thing it could be.  Which made me jealous.  I think next time I have a cough I will just go to the vet.  She's cheaper than our doctor too.

Anyway, with the weather warming up, I am hoping to be well enough to get out and enjoy it.  Hopefully my wife will feel better soon too (because unlike toughing it out like I did, she whines a lot).  Plus I am getting wore out from waiting on her hand and foot.

Stop Babying Me...In A Few Days!

Lately my post-cancer frustration has been people babying me.  I know by the occasional tickle along my waist that I am still not 100% healed, but I feel better than I have since the surgery.  I have been using my abdominal brace less and less and been exerting myself more and more.

The lack of a brace wasn't necessarily intentional.  I tends to get in the way, especially if you are doing any bending or sitting.  Which since my major source of activity lately has been climbing in my boat, sitting down in front of the hydraulics while cussing, crying, and praying that they work, the brace had to go.  There is another odd side effect with the brace.  The brace, which looks a lot like a back brace, completely takes any pain away from my abdomen, but ironically kills my back.  Another reason I have been wearing it less and less.

Two incidents have triggered these feelings about feeling babied.  Our neighbor was over the other day who still primarily heats with wood.  I said I was about to cut down some trees and if he wanted the firewood I would leave the logs for him, otherwise I would hack it all up and haul it away to burn, something we have done many times in the past. He said he would help when he was able.  I said I wasn't asking for the help, I just wanted to know if he wanted the wood.  He again said he would and he could help.  This back and forth went on several times, and I think he finally caught on that all I was asking is if he wanted the wood, I hope.

The second incident, a very good friend of mine who has been super supportive since all this happened, went to the hardware store with me.  I needed to pick up a fifty pound (ninety kilogram) jug of sand for some sandblasting I need to do.  When the employee brought it out, he snatched it up before I could grab it.  I said he didn't need to do that, but he refused to let me carry it.  Now me being me, I was tempted to say I needed another one and see if he would carry that one too, and if he did, I would have kept going.  But I didn't.  This friend has made it a point to check in on me regularly and I can't fault him for that.

So, with that being said, the past few days I have been whining while laying around the house all day wanting to be babied.  While driving to meet another friend last week for lunch, I heard an all too familiar sound from the backseat.  My Jeep has a known problem where the power windows just decide one day that they give up.  The sound I heard was the wind whistling through the window that was sliding down with each bump (of which there are quite a few from the endless assault of salt trucks).  When I turned in my Jeep for warranty, they informed me that since it was the second time this has happened to me, the warranty required them to replace all four.  Great news!  Except that I hadn't planned on sitting around the waiting room quite that long.  So, at some point during my four hour stay there, someone decided they would like to share the plague with me (or a nasty cold, one or the other).

The past few days have involved me single-handedly raising Kleenex's stock sales by over 50% (stock prices not verified) and walking around trying to remember when I swallowed a small melon whole, because it was obviously caught in my throat.  It has been a while since I have had just a plain old cold, and I don't remember them making me this miserable before.   Maybe I was always this puny.  All I know, is I guess this will prepare me for whenever we do have a child, since I hear those little germ factories bring you a new malady every week.

So, I hope to be healthy again in the next day or so.  I am not feeling too bad right now.  I hope to fix those damn hydraulics on my boat soon.  And hopefully people will see I am getting stronger after my surgery as well, and go back to treating me like crap.  Well, maybe not completely like crap, just not like a baby...unless I have a cold.

Hmmmm....Livestrong Does More Than Make Bracelets

As we wait for my "junk" to wake up after chemo (or what's left of it after surgery), our doctor has mentioned all the possibilities we have for getting pregnant.  Many of those possibilities cost a lot of money.

Before my cancer support group the other day, another woman and myself were both sporting our Livestrong bracelets, and talking about upcoming Livestrong events before the meeting started.  This lead into a conversation about Lance Armstrong and the Tour de France.   After the meeting started, when it was my turn to discuss things with the group, I asked if anyone knew of any foundations that would help pay for fertility treatments for testicular cancer patients.  Then someone asked me something so obvious, I felt absolutely stupid for not thinking of it myself.  She said, "Have you called Livestrong?"  I hadn't.  I hadn't thought to call the foundation started by a guy who had testicular cancer and had fertility problems and successfully fathered children since his treatment.  Why would I think to call that guy?!?!  Did I mention I felt stupid?

So, first thing the next day I called Livestrong and talked to a really nice young lady who sounded like she was about twelve years old.  I am hoping she was twelve years old, because she gave me names of several places that offer help for people in my situation, and all those names were wrong, and if she were twelve I could say "she got the names wrong, but she's only twelve, what do you expect?"  HOWEVER, they were just barely wrong, so I was able to type them into Livestrong's website and get the correct names for the foundations I was looking for.  Now back to the twelve year old, I am pretty sure she wasn't twelve (unless Texas doesn't have child labor laws), but nevertheless, do you realize how awkward it is talking about testicular cancer and fertility issues to someone on the phone that sounds like a twelve year old girl?  I expected Chris Hansen to get on the phone about halfway through the conversation and ask me what I was doing.

So, after figuring out the correct foundations, I started researching them.  Some of them had requirements that I qualified for and others I didn't qualify for.  One in particular I think was all talk.  They would pay for everything provided you filled out your application after getting diagnosed and prior to any treatment and you had to wait until you heard back from them before you proceeded, but then they would pay for everything!  Of course they will pay for everything, because they know there is absolutely no chance anyone will do that.  Your mind is going a million miles an hour once you have been diagnosed, the last thing you are thinking of is looking up foundations and filling out applications.  Here is a timeline, I got preliminarily diagnosed on a Tuesday, confirmed that Friday, was told to immediately go make a "deposit" at the "bank" followed by another on that Monday, and have my surgery Thursday.  That left literally a two hour window between my official diagnosis (which you need for the application) and the deposit to fill out the application, send it off, and wait for a reply.  Yeah, I am sure they give out tons of cash.  (That is sarcasm by the way.)  But I am also sure that company is telling everyone about this great program they have.

One of the more promising leads is a hospital. that I am all too familiar with, will do in vitro for free (if it comes to that) for testicular cancer patients in my situation (poor).  They have very little requirements, like you have to make less that $75,000, which I just barely squeaked under that requirement by about $70,000.  I love this hospital and would be happy to work with them, although admittedly, most of the time I am there I am on my back and unconscious.  But from what I remember about my visits there, they are good.

A question that frequently comes up when I mention in vitro is "Does that mean you guys will be like the Octomom?"  In our doctor's conversations about in vitro, not once has she mentioned the word "litter".  I don't think I need a bunch of kids at once, because not being a sports person I am not trying to make a "team".  Although being a fan of music, a power trio might be nice.  We are still hopeful though that the other tricks our doctor is having us do will work, including my junk working right again at some point.

So as we approach another set of fertility appointments, I am getting anxious to hear what the next step will be.  Do you remember the old flea circuses on cartoons and stuff?  I feel like my swimmers are having to do a sperm circus, because they are constantly washing them and counting them and freezing them and thawing them and who knows what else.  All I know, is the toughest thing I have had to do so far is look at dirty magazines.  Wait until we have a kid and I tell them all the hardships I went through to create them.  I am sure they will want to hear it.

The Sarasota Redemption

I have been busy lately...and lazy lately, too.  We had to make an emergency trip to Florida, which as far as emergency trips go, Florida is not a bad place to emerge.  My wife volunteers for a basenji rescue organization, which means I volunteer by proxy.  Two basenjis didn't work out at their "forever home" and needed to go back to the foster in Florida.

When we were first made aware of the situation, we decided we would stay a few extra days and sneak in some rest and relaxation.  With only a week to make plans, we called up our friends down there who always say to come down anytime, who told us we couldn't come down then, they had guests already.  I thought that was rude, I mean, they have known their mom their whole life and have only known us a few years.  Who needs more time to catch up?  Regardless, we thought about option two, a friend of mine who loans me his vacation home down there who, without asking me, decided to stay in it himself.  So, this left us without a place to stay.  I frantically searched the internet all the next day trying to find some options without much luck, at least not in the price range of an unemployed cancer patient.  At the end of the day, we were discussing our options when we get the call that we will not be leaving the next week, we need to leave the next day.

The good news, we can stay with our friends, of whom I will now take back the comments I made in the previous paragraph.  The bad news, we literally had less than twelve hours to put everything into place.  Phone calls were made and we were able to put our plan into motion.  The next morning, I met another volunteer and received two very timid and scared basenjis.  I brought them home to the house, where they cowered in the corner of their crate.  Our oldest basenji immediately walked up and peed on their crate.  Not exactly the welcome I was hoping he would give them.  Since we had a night of driving ahead of us, I decided to let them look out the sliding glass door from their crate for a little bit while I grabbed a nap.

After waking, I put the crate in the bedroom, so they would feel a little more secure and opened the door expecting them to fly out of their confines.  After half an hour, and still no flying, I gave up.  I could get the one to eat out of my hand, but not come out of the cage.  I continued preparation until my wife returned from work.  After another agonizingly long time she was able to coax them out so we could take them to pee before our trip.  The female decided to pee in the middle of the hallway, no sense waiting until you get outside.  After a very scary trip outside (I am still not sure what was so scary out there, but they were definitely scared of something) we load up the two rescue basenjis and our two basenjis and start our fifteen hour trek.  The trip down was fairly uneventful, delivering the two rescues back to their familiar foster where they immediately got back into their old routine.  We then made the hour trip down to our friends.

After our last trip to the area, I was a little afraid it would end up the same, me curled up in a ball in pain after hurting myself again.  Luckily that didn't happen.  The trip went great.  We took the Curly Tail Mafia out for some fun (our two basenjis and our friend's shiba inu), we ate at some great places, we had lots of fun with our friends, and snuck out and had some fun on our own too.

In my cancer support group yesterday, I said that week was the first week since all this started that I didn't feel like a cancer patient.  I enjoyed myself and feel like this is starting to be behind me.  I say that as I stare down and impending scan.  I told the group I may "graduate" to the survivors group, but I am going to wait and see how bad my scanxiety is this next time.  Maybe Florida was the answer, and if my wife really loved me and cared about my well-being, she would let me move down there.  She could come too if she wants.

Cannot Express It

Lately I have been having trouble, mental trouble (which has resulted in me missing in action from here).  I have not had the best of luck lately, but at the same time, I kinda have.

Losing my job in August was at first devastating.  It was a job I loved to do and, when I lost it, I hated not being a part of it anymore.  As I decompressed in the days following my lay-off, it dawned on me (with a little help of my wife saying I wasn't as big of a jerk anymore) that I didn't love my job like I used to because I was no longer working that job.  There were two bosses I absolutely loved.  One passed away and the other retired.  When they were gone, so was the vision behind my job.  I kept trying to follow that vision and keep the mission going, while most of the people above me didn't understand the vision and wanted my position to go in a different direction.  The constant internal tug of war of wanting to do what I was hired for and having to do others things was wearing me down.  Being away from that helped me see it clearly that I wasn't as happy in the job as I had been at one point.

When I was diagnosed with cancer a couple of weeks later, the lack of a job (but the benefit of a severance package that may or may not have existed) made it possible to recover without having to ask off work or worry about getting things done in my absence.  And as I have said on here before, if I hadn't been laid off, I probably wouldn't have gone to the doctor when I did (because of time) and wouldn't have been diagnosed until my cancer had progressed much further.  Yes, I would rather be employed in a job I love and have two healthy nuts, but life can't go well for everyone all the time and I don't mind taking my turn at having some bad luck.

And I can see other positives as well.  I was struggling to get my boat I am restoring on the water.  I had hit a point where I just couldn't figure this one part out.  Having cancer stopped all work on the boat and winter postponed it even more.  The past few months I have been poring over three different engine manuals until the warm spell this week.  With months of reading manuals fresh in my head, I finally figured out what my problem was in about an hour and will have it fixed soon.  So, as with many of the negative things I have gone through lately, I have managed to find a positive thing that has come out of it as well.

I have been struggling with the concept of God's Will or Divine Intervention.  After all, does God really get involved in little things like whether the hydraulics on my boat work or even bigger things like my cancer?  I mean, surely there are bigger issues in the world that He is watching.  Either way I thank God for the good things in my life and I also thank Him that the bad things aren't worse.  I can comprehend my own life, but it's others I have really been struggling with.  I have met many people in my support group that I have gotten to know, appreciate, and care for.  Some of them seem to get shit on by life again and again, and I don't understand why.  You hear their absolutely bleak diagnoses and you wonder, why?  Now I say that with this caveat, doctors aren't necessarily the best with their "You have X amount of time left..." predictions.  I personally refer to these people as the "Living Dead" because they have been walking around in some cases dozens of years after the doctor told them they would succumb to the disease.  But it's more than just the cancer, other people dear to me have had things happen to them that put me at a loss to understand why things like this would ever happen in a world with a loving God.

Now don't for a second think that my faith in God is wavering, just my understanding.  In my own life, I can point to how every negative thing that has ever happened to me has either made my life better in the long run or made me a better person.  And the cliché is true "Sometimes bad things happen to good people" (and by the way, I just purposely misspelled "cliché" so I could use spell check because I don't know how to make that stupid little accent).  My problem isn't so much why do bad things happen to good people, but why don't bad things happen to bad people?  Or why don't they happen to bad people more often?

One theory I have come up with, from personal experience with bad people, is that sometimes bad things to bad people but they are such assholes that they don't even see it as a bad thing.  "My sister-in-law got burned up in a house fire when lightning struck her as she fell off a ladder while crashing through her skylight, and I got $1000 bucks in the will.  Kick ass!"  OK, I do know of someone who had an experience like that happen (although not as dramatic), but their reaction was exactly what I said (if not worse).  I also think that some of these bad people tend to brag about how great their life is, while trying to convince themselves that their life is as great as they say.  People that are truly happy don't tend to go around bragging about the stuff in their life.  If people that seem truly happy tend to tell you about the stuff they have, it is usually because they are offering to share it with you, such as my good friend who frequently loans me his Florida vacation home for free.

This stuff has been bothering me a lot starting at my cancer support group meeting two weeks ago, and it seems people that I care deeply about have been having horrible things happen to them since.  I told my wife today, I don't know how much more I want to go to the group meetings, because seeing people I care about hurt so much is affecting me negatively.  If I could understand the "why" it would be so much easier.  I have had some shit happen in my life, but overall, I think I have come out of life OK.  I would like to have a fun well paying job.  I would like to know what it feels like to go out and have a drink with friends.  I would like to leave the house and not panic because I left my glucose tabs or stomach medicine in my other jacket.  On the other hand, I am glad I have a family that loves and support me.  I am glad that the tough spots in my life have shown me who sticks by me in the long run (and I am glad that so many have).  I am glad I have two basenjis that are crazy.  I guess it boils down to this, maybe I would be better off married to Christy Turlington, or Mila Kunis, or Keira Knightley, or all three and a few others to be named later.  Maybe I would be better off if my last name was Disney.  Maybe I would be better off with a normal body that wasn't battered from arthritis, worn down from cancer treatment, twisted from GI problems, and with a weird eyeball on my eyeball.  But the question I ask myself, would I give up everything in my life and roll the dice again?  Maybe not get the same life, nor same friends, nor same family, etc.  I don't think I would take my chances like that.

I don't know if God has a "plan" for us.  I don't know how much of a role He plays in controlling our day to day life.  What I thought I had figured out I don't know anymore.  I don't know what I know or believe or how to express what I do think.  I don't know why bad things happen to good people, nor why good things sometimes happen to bad people.  All I know, is I think I am blessed, regardless of the things I wish were different in my life.  And I will continue to pray for the ones that I care about that their lives get better soon.

Sometimes Doctors Just Make Up Words...

If you read my blog from yesterday, last night I noticed a little bump on my eye.  Not on the lid, I have a little tiny eye ball on my eyeball.  Most people would never notice it was there, but I know it's there and that's what bothers me.  Although, when the light hits it just right, it's like a have a little glimmer in my eye.  I guess that can be kinda cool, even if the reason for the glimmer is depressing me.  Today I called the local ophthalmologist, who just happens to be closed on Fridays, which meant I had to go down the road to Wal-Mart's vision center.

The doctor at Wal-Mart was very nice (WOW, there is a group of words I never thought I would see together) and very quickly identified the problem.  I simply had a pingueculum, which I am sure you already guessed by now, but it was the first time I had ever heard of that word.  Apparently it is a Latin word that means "screw you I am here to stay and there isn't a darn thing you can do about it".  At least that is what I think it means from the explanation the doctor gave me.  Apparently in sunny climates nearer to the equator, people get these all the time from all of the sun.  Lately, here in Ohio if we want to see the sun, we have to look it up on the internet.  So, the probable cause of my penguinlump (or whatever it's called) is dust, which is very common up in our area.  He said it was no big deal, that many people get them.  In fact, he informed me there is a smaller one forming in my other eye too that I hadn't noticed yet.  Wow, I am twice as lucky as I originally thought.

Easy enough, so what is the cure you ask?  There basically is none.  They are there for life.  He tells me that I can have it surgically removed, but they usually come right back.  Well, that's good to know.  (Although, my wife did do some research and apparently a new type of surgery only has a 4% chance of them reoccurring).  He said that I should probably start using fake tears to keep that area from drying out, because when that area dries out it gets irritated, and when it gets irritated it gets bigger.  Even better news!  The other thing is to wear sunglasses.

I hate wearing all glasses.  Now anyone that knows me at all, knows that I think girls in glasses are hot (that's why I keep putting sand in my wife's contact case), so it's kind of ironic that I hate wearing glasses myself.  I have owned two pair of sunglasses my adult life.  The first pair was for riding a bike.  You only need a few bugs in your eyes and to be riding a bike blind for a few minutes on a busy street to realize you need glasses to protect you.  And a couple of years ago, my wife gave me the ultimatum that if I didn't get some sunglasses she wouldn't let me on a boat.  Outside of that I have never had nor worn sunglasses.  Now just for clarification I do wear safety glasses, especially when dealing with metal shavings.  You only need to hear one story on how they have to grind the metal out of your eyeball, before you decide you don't want to deal with that.

While at Wal-Mart, I bought my eye drops, so half of my assignment was done.  Now I had to do the dreaded search for sunglasses.  The good news is, winter in Ohio isn't a really busy time for sunglass counters, meaning I didn't have to wait in any long lines.  The bad new is, winter in Ohio isn't a really busy time for sunglass counters, so their stock is limited.  We finally found a store with a good selection and I think I was made to try on every pair...twice...some four times.  The selection process went sort of like this.  I find a pair I like.  My wife wrinkles her nose and gives me at least three reasons why she hates it and why my choice sucks.  She grabs a pair of tortoise shell framed glasses for me to try on.  I say I don't want tortoise shell frames they look to feminine.  I grab another pair and we repeat the whole process again.  This goes on for at least four hours (according to my internal man-clock) with the salesperson usually siding with my wife (a female conspiracy).  Until we had it narrowed down to two pair.  A pair that costs $50 and a pair of Ray-Bans that cost $150.  Since I never plan on buying another pair of sunglasses for the rest of my life, I justified the $150 Ray-Bans.  The main reason is they have those springy little arms that not only feel better against my noggin, but also won't break when someone who hasn't worn glasses for most of his thirty-nine years (plus one) rips his glasses off the wrong way.

The part of the evening that baffled me, is we passed through a shoe sale and a purse sale and my wife started drooling.  I told her I didn't really have any room to do any complaining after my purchase, and for the one and only time in my life, I would watch her by a purse or pair of shoes, without pointing out the thirty-seven other pairs she has just like it.  My wife looked at me, definitely stunned, and what surprised me, is she didn't buy anything!!!  I think it was like going fishing versus buying fish sticks at the grocery store.  I guess buying shoes and purses is no fun if there is no sport involved in aggravating me by it.  I am tempted to use this reverse psychology in the future, but I think I would be pressing my luck (plus she reads these sometimes).

I now have every thing I need to treat my pingpongdudrum.  I have the eye drops and an expensive pair of sunglasses.  The article also mentioned that staring at LCD monitors can aggravate pingearcolumns, which not only cuts down on my planned study of internet pornography in the future (unless I have my sunglasses on), but is my excuse for any typos from now on.  I am not proofreading for my health!

After Cancer You Can't "Don't Worry About It"

Today I arrived early for my cancer support group.  Shortly after two others came in and we were talking a bit before the rest of the group arrived.  One person had missed that previous week and was asking about my results.  I told her I received the results of all my tests and that the lumps in my kidneys were just cysts.

This brought on a conversation amongst the three of us, all sharing the common bond of cancer.  When the lumps (or doctor's speak "masses") first showed up on my CT scan, I was told "It's probably nothing to worry about" and "Don't worry about it".  All three of us in the room had heard that message at one point or another in our treatment, and all three of us found it impossible "not to worry about it".  After you are told you have the Big C, any unknown is something to worry about.

Here are suggestions of things I can "not worry about".  A mechanic saying the tires will need replacing by next winter but in the mean time don't worry about it.  Not getting home in time to see a favorite TV show, it is now available on-demand so don't worry about it.  You forgot to send a obscene e-mail forward to your friend, you can always send it later, don't worry about it.  The restaurant you choose doesn't serve Pepsi, don't worry about it....well, that one actually is a pretty big deal.

My point is, doctors that haven't been through a cancer scare in their own life, don't know how hard it is not to worry about something when there is even the tiniest hint of a chance that it may be related to cancer.  A friend that has helped me a lot through my journey is living eight years cancer free.  For the past eight years they have flown through every exam without a problem...until this last one.  They had a questionable result and were told not to worry about it.  They told me that they did worry about it a lot.  Luckily it turned out to be nothing to worry about, for real.  But my friend's point to me was, the "not worry about it" syndrome never goes away, no matter how many good results you get in the mean time.  It's a perfectly normal reaction.

Later in group, completely unrelated to our pre-group conversation, the topic came up where two people mentioned how their "don't worry about it" diagnosis went on for years and later turned out to be cancer.  Now I am not saying that one shouldn't listen to their doctor's advice when told not to worry about it, but those of us who have lived through cancer and those of us who know someone who should have worried about it, we can't not worry about it.  Luckily, more often that not it really is nothing to worry about.

The ironic thing is as I was preparing to write tonight, I noticed a raised bump on my eye.  As most of us do in this modern age, I did a little internet research on what it could be.  Most of the things on the internet say "don't worry about it" but see a doctor immediately.  I bet you can guess what I am going to do as soon as the doctor's office opens.

How To Gut Your Past And Hurt Your Gut

The outside temperature was bitter cold and I didn't feel too bad, so I finally decided to head up to my shop and clean out snake alley.  Overall things went OK, I might even say better than expected.

I felt like I was preparing to board the space shuttle, it took about fifteen minutes to get ready.  I wore thermal socks, a pair of pants, a pair of ski pants over them, a shirt, a sweatshirt, insulated steel toe boots, then it's time to put on the abdominal brace, then a jacket, then another jacket, then a balaclava, then put on my hood, then my gloves, then the handwarmers inside the gloves, and then I am ready...to pee.  So I peel everything off, pee and start all over again.

Working in the shop wasn't too bad.  I actually had to unzip my jacket and switched from my balaclava to a hat. With the amount of snakeskins I found originally I had expected to find them throughout the area I was working in, but they were just at the front.  It appears that it is just one rat bastard snake messing with me.  Every year I try to make the area less and less hospitable for the serpents, but yet they still manage to sneak in.  I think I finally found the place they are getting in at.  So, between giving them less places to hang out, I hope that blocking the spot they come in at will really aggravate them enough that they decide to go somewhere else, maybe your house.  I don't care as long as it isn't where I am.

The area I was cleaning up was what I refer to as the "Engine Room".  Yes, I have some many spare motors that I have a room in my shop dedicated to them.  Besides having a bunch of engines in this room, I also have all the trappings of my bachelor life.  After being up there for ten years, I have come to the revelation that I am not going to use that stuff anytime soon, plus some of it is ruined, and when I get divorced, my nineteen year-old girlfriend(s) will probably want different stuff anyway.  I had about ten of those plastic tote box thingys to go through.  I had three piles:  keep, donate, throw away.  When I was done I had three boxes of keep, three of recycle, one donate, and about eight garbage bags of throw away.  Yes, I will probably be sued by the garbage man tomorrow.

There were some pleasant surprises though.  For some reason, anything I place in this part of my shop seems to mildew almost immediately.  It's like a little Bermuda Triangle for mold.  It doesn't really hurt the engines, because I coat them with Vaseline before they are stored (it's an old racers' trick).  The only problem was when initially buying the family size economy five gallon bucket of Vaseline, explaining to my wife what my intentions for that much Vaseline were.  When I opened up case after case, most of the stuff I cared about was mildew free!  There were things I thought were going to be ruined that were just fine.  There were other things that I thought I had lost, because I didn't remember putting them in these cases, that I found.  And still other things that I had just plain forgot about.  What I also found were more things to sell on ebay, things that I have already been selling well.

I finished just as it was getting dark outside.  With help from the abdominal brace, I managed to make it through the whole ordeal with out any reinjury of my surgery, it was just every other part of my body that hurts.  I don't know why it feels like I have been on a bike for five hours, when I didn't have a chance to sit down at all, but every single part of my body hurts.  I came down to the house, very slowly and groaning, and jumped in the shower.  As the hot water from the shower defrosted my blubber, I started to loosen up a little. The pains subsided just a bit, and I toweled off...that's is when I somehow managed to pull my incision.  I don't know how I could do all the twisting, tugging, pulling, moaning, whining, and snake detesting without any problem, but the simple act of toweling off manage to hurt it.  I guess I will just drip dry from now on.

So, I feel good that I finished a project that I have been wanting to do for a long time.  I am glad I was able to rescue a few mementos of my bachelor life and clean out my engine room.  I am hurting all over, but I think my incision isn't hurting as bad as it has in the past.  Hopefully tomorrow the tightness and soreness of the rest of my body will mask the pain in my incision.

Oncologists Do Care About Swimmers Sometimes

As I have mentioned earlier, the thing that has been bothering me lately is my questionable swimmers.  At one point I was told they were normal at another point I was told they were abnormal.  Giving someone hope then recalling that hope is worse than not giving the hope in the first place.  At least that is how I feel about it.

Last week I had a heart to heart with my oncologist and told him how much it was bothering me and that I didn't feel like waiting around until May to check the swimmers again as my urologist/surgeon had suggested.  My oncologist was in a hurry and didn't really seem to be very interested in the conversation, but he said he agreed with me, made some suggestions and sent me on my way.  I assumed that was the end of it.

Then this week my oncologist called while I was gone.  The first reason I like my oncologist is that he didn't wait until I was home and leave some cryptic message, he talked to my wife and gave her information he knew I wanted to know.  I am sure he broke fifteen or twenty "rules" about divulging medical information, but as the patient, I appreciate it.  My wife has been to just about every oncologist appointment with me, and oncologists' calls are usually pretty important.  One doesn't generally want to wait until the "next business day" to start playing phone tag.

The information he gave was my lab results saying that my "tumor markers" came back good.  I have no idea what the heck "tumor markers" are, but if he is happy about them I am too.  Whoopee tumor markers!  What really impressed me though is that the subject I thought he was blowing off, he actually cared about and thought about after the appointment.  He said he consulted some colleagues and they agreed that May seemed like a long time to wait to see if my swimmers could go in the deep end when they should be back to the pre-chemo ways much sooner than that.

What is really cool, is that my oncologist came up with a way to not offend my urologist, by simply not telling him I was doing any of this.  He suggested we go to a "fertility specialist" that will have me tested right away. I mention this to my cancer support group, where there has been another individual in a similar position.  Somehow during the conversation I mention that wives are not allowed in the room during the "testing" to which they replied that they got to "test" as a couple.  I feel cheated!  I mean the first few times were fine being alone.  After all I had a lot of reading material to look through, but now that I have seen all of those sticky pages, I wouldn't mind going through the test without having to touch something that cracked when you turned the pages.

All of this has put me in a much better mood than I have been during the scanxiety.  I have a plan again, and hopefully will gain some good news or at least have a good game plan mapped out.  If nothing else, I get to watch some "documentaries" again.

Sometimes A Late Night Is Just A Late Night

Last night I planned on writing as soon as I finished my project.  But at 4am I didn't feel much like writing.  The good news is, I can tell it not scanxiety related insomnia, because if it were, I would be ready to do the same thing again, but I am not.  I have been dead tired all day.

I doubt I am alone.  If you are doing a boring, tedious project (especially if it is for someone else) sometimes you are glad to find an excuse to quit that project and do something else, even if that something else is sleep.  When the project is your hobby and it is something you are excited to finish, nothing will get in your way.  And that is what my issue was last night.  I only had a few things left to finish, and I didn't want to wake up with a mess in the floor reminding me that I can't play until I finish what I had started.

I had also planned on writing the night before, but in preparation for my pet project, I decided to clean to the equipment I was installing last night.  Two hours of scrubbing later and my wrists were shot and flopping around like a sock monkey's arms.  I could barely hold my Pepsi much less write.  And I said barely hold on to my Pepsi.  Even if I were just a head, I could find a way to drink my Pepsi.

So, with my late night romp last night, my wife accused me of just being a normal insomniac and wanting me to find some prescription relief from my doctor.  There is a big difference between staying up late occasionally and scanxiety insomnia or even regular insomnia.  For instance, with my scanxiety, I went to bed only out of habit and then usually just laid there staring at the ceiling for another hour or two.  I could get four hours of sleep or less and be ready to do it all over again the next day.  Last night, I was dead tired when I finished my project and I think I actually fell asleep on the way to the bed.  And today, even though I slept in late, my butt has been dragging all day.  I don't think I will have any trouble getting to sleep tonight.

Outside of last night, ever since my oncologist appointment, my sleep pattern is almost that of a normal human being.  Hopefully this means my wife will quit bugging me about needing some sort of sleep aid, until my scanxiety returns in three months with my next oncologist appointment, then we can start all over again.