A lot has happened in the past couple of years since I stopped posting regularly here at Morning Rain Shower. I lost a good cyber buddy who inspired me and kept me going in the blogosphere to cancer and then I found out he was not the person I thought he was. He took me on a very deceptive and slippery slope and he crushed me. In the long run, I have no more hard feelings and I really pity him that he had to tell so many lies. He was a good friend and supported and loved me through a lot.
Ten months ago I was diagnosed with prostate cancer after an unnecessary TURP operation that reamed out the urethra that passes through my prostate. It was closing and pissing was very painful and I almost died because of urine backing up into my kidneys. I was in and out of emergency about four different times. I had about ten different catheters all together through the whole process and was happy to see the last one taken out. I took two of them myself. Not fun. I named them. I had my day time catheter, Cathi, with an i and my night time bag I named, Big Bertha.
After the operation they took a biopsy and discovered I was a 9 out of 10 on the Gleason scale. I have no idea what stage I was because through all the shit they never took a PSA. I had to heal up from the TURP in order for them to operate again and I ended up in February having a radical prostatectomy. Right after I was diagnosed in December, I started hormone therapy with Lupron injections. Or as my Urologist so lovingly like to refer to it; chemical castration. I will talk about this another time.
I'm not going to go into it all right now, because there is a lot I want to share. I think my main purpose in doing this right now is that I want any of my readers to be aware that it is something you need to be on top of and be as proactive as possible because there are no symptoms. I'm not sure how many will read this or if anyone really cares, but through the whole process during the past year or more that I was going through this, I have maintained that I want to help others and answer any questions and share my experience so that others don't have to go through the hell I have been through. I have a good friend I have known since Junior High School going through this right now and I have been able to help him.
The good news is that I am cancer free as of today. My PSA after seven weeks of radiation is .023 which is pretty damn low.