Photons on the Prostate - IV

Unhealthy and unwealthy

Visiting the hospital, I wondered if we are not a sick nation even an unhealthy one, too, contributing by choice and inaction to whatever ails us.

I suggested appointments were indicative and that's what I have experienced for my appointments this week. A late call running an hour behind schedule, and then two calls that had me treated before the scheduled time.

How it really works

My fascination with radiotherapy gained pleasure when I found a YouTube video demonstrating how the linear accelerator works. My respect for the engineering behind the linac just left me in glee.

Linear Accelerators (LINAC) | Biomedical Engineers TV

Not me being a nerd, in the nerdish pursuit of understanding the science of radiotherapy. I should not bore you with much apart from something I witnessed twice in five minutes.

At the main waiting area of the radiotherapy department, there is a clanger bell, you are asked to ring it thrice at the end of your treatment course.

Ring my bell

I have been longing for when I could ring that bell, and I am only 20% into my treatment regime. I heard the bell ring for the first time in all my visits, and everyone heartily clapped.

It was a bell of hope and expectation to us, the sound of enduring survival of the human spirit, and the herald of the beginning of the rest of the ringers' lives, free of cancer and thriving after cancer.

The gruelling treatment would eventually end and the opportunity to go out and live in the extravagant celebration of life beckons.

Why we were there

Then I heard my name; I was called into the suite, set up on the automatic gurney and ready for my fifth radiotherapy session.

I knew exactly what was happening, probably a horror tease of science fiction getting irradiated on the prostate as Chaka Khan belted out "I'm every woman," on the radio. I checked at the end, and I'm very much still a man.

Thinking about it, I have never asked for a sick note in a working life of 36 years, I might need to get one now, to fulfil all righteousness. It is at 25% now, each session adds 5% to the tally.

Tomorrow, we are doing the morning shift barely after the sun rises, much help is provided, and all support is appreciated. Shalom!

Photons on the Prostate - III

He’s just independent

Three things greeted my concern after a rather uncomfortable weekend, the quick onset of fatigue, sudden events of feverish bouts, the ongoing lack of appetite, and the obvious loss of my natural voice that seemed to suggest that I had a cold or sore throat, however, it was one sign of labouring through the fatigue.

If I had not had my ear bent enough through the weekend by lover, friend, colleague, and neighbour about my reticence to ask for help. I am generally independent; they say I am stubborn. Some condemned the idea that I was boarding public transportation to and from the hospital.

Rather than fight these battles, I relented and by that ceded control with the unfamiliarity that a control freak might find impossible, I am not a control freak, I just like things to be ordered as a creature of punctuality and habit.

From drive to driven

My neighbour dropped things she needed to do this afternoon to drive me to the hospital and stay the whole time before bringing me back home for tea at hers. Bless her.

My older friendly steward colleague from church gave me a ride back home from church on Sunday, putting one foot in front of another to get to church had totally exhausted me. I sat through most of the service on a day I would normally have been a steward. Everyone was considerate, kind, empathetic and reassuring, it helped.

Arriving at the hospital with just about 5 minutes to spare before my scheduled appointment, it is unimaginable how heavy the traffic was on the main or back roads, it wasn’t 4:00 PM and we were in essentially rush-hour traffic, a 21-minute drive easily extending into more than 40 minutes.

Appointments are just indicators

I booked into my suite, but there was a wait, an emergency radiotherapy session for someone bedridden and then another who was having his first session attending with his wife and soon I went to collect my neighbour from the main waiting room to the suite waiting area. It soon filled up with patients of all descriptions.

Time ticked away and it was literally an hour after my scheduled appointment that I was called with the first requirement being, please visit the toilet and do whatever you can. It was a team of men operating the suite as I regaled them with the history of Elekta, I guess even when I try not to be, I end up being a nerd, all the same.

Zap and dap

Again, to spare my blushes as I pulled down my trousers to reveal tattoos and crown jewels, they had a covering ready to which I retorted, that they had seen all sorts, I was not in the least bothered. They worked like a flight crew in setting me up in the bed, reciting and confirming measurements and settings before we had the first whirl of the linear accelerator and then I was left for the machine to do its deed.

They then referred me to a reviewing nurse who took me into an office, it was soon that I realised why her voice was a bit different, she had a voice box, obviously someone who had had radical surgery on her throat. She was efficient as she meticulously recorded all the side effects and symptoms, she gave the advice to take in more fluids and try to defeat the issue of not eating enough.

And so we go

My temperature and blood pressure were taken and there is the possibility after further review that they might do some blood tests. I still have not found out the updated PSA and testosterone results of over two weeks ago. I wonder where they are held as they have not communicated to my doctor.

That’s three done, my steward colleague from the church is picking me up tomorrow morning for my next appointment. It might be later in the week before I have a schedule that favours a late appointment. Meanwhile, there is a bit more timbre in my voice, it is probably something between a shock to the system and an adjustment to the treatment.

Photons on the Prostate - II

Buses and stresses

As I prepared for my rescheduled second course of radiotherapy, as it was later in the day I could get other things done. I had reckoned I should schedule an hour before the appointment for preparation and travel to get to my appointment on time, which might need a review.

On a bus journey that is normally 29 minutes, I alighted from the bus 50 minutes after I boarded it, rush hour traffic amongst other issues. I hate getting so worked up going to the hospital, even the thought of arriving late affects my blood pressure, thankfully, that is not being measured for radiotherapy.

Suited for the suite

On arrival, I was passed from one reception to another, the one that manages the suite where radiotherapy is delivered. They give you another day’s appointment, each visit so that you have 5 in hand.

The radiographer came out to ask if I had done the micro-enema, which I had done at home as the Shit-on-Demand thing was just not working with me. However, to fulfil all righteousness, I went to the toilet and managed to empty my bladder.

When I was called into the suite, the standard formalities of confirming who I am ensued, these were the same radiographers I had seen the day before, and the music playing was Otis Redding’s Sitting on the dock of the bay, as I pulled down my trousers and lay on the hard bed to be positioned for alignment with the green laser beams.

Zap and dap

A few adjustments later, they left me in the room to remotely set off the imaging before targeting the photon beam. In the waiting room, I saw two commemorations of donors of equipment to the radiotherapy department. The kit used to deliver radiotherapy was the Elekta Synergy linear accelerator, first launched in 2002. [Elekta: Important Turns in the history of the company 1994-2005][Radiology Oncology Systems: Elekta Linear Accelerators* Comparison Chart]

It does everything you need it to do and from a table of comparisons, it is a workhorse with very few cons. Within 15 minutes, the deed was done, and I was dressing up to return home.

I had a takeaway last night, but I am still struggling with my appetite for food, I am not fatigued but feel lethargic, and I might need some help around the house. I hope tomorrow, I have the strength to steward at the Cathedral, that’s 2 down and 18 to go. Monday for the next, I might steal a sip of sparkling water before the end of today.

Thought Picnic: Cultivating profitable relationships

Who are true family?

Then Jesus told them, “A prophet is honoured everywhere except in his own hometown and among his relatives and his own family.” [Bible Hub: Mark 6:4 (NLT)]

Sometimes, as I begin to write, a verse of scripture comes to mind around which I can build a context and a story. I am not a prophet, nor do I seek honour, however, just being noticed and acknowledged can help, but that is not the purpose for which I have a blog.

Yet, anyone who has visited my blog finds out there is much to learn about me, my life, my story, my trials, tribulations and afflictions, my triumphs, successes, and blessings, most evidently my thinking and opinions. I remember some friends who had not spoken to me for a while saying, they always checked the currency of my blog to ascertain if I was fine. I am grateful for their consideration, nothing is hidden, I write better than I speak, talk, or tell.

Nothing is hidden

In the past six months, just by engagement of my social media postings, a majority of which refer to my blogs, it would be impossible not to notice that I have had an experience that will pass of prostate cancer.

Yet, I find it bizarre that those who saw my GoFundMe post last year and were quick to preach their bad tidings to Jerusalem, to Judea, and to the ends of the earth by reporting to my parents and relatives along with anyone who listens to their gossip have not found the scandal to interest and occupy them.

They do not mean well, they never meant well, they found joy in the report but never extended a hand to help, a Machiavellian bunch of invisible never-do-wells, will not have the stories or the blessings I get to tell and that is not a curse, you reap what you sow.

The people who matter

What I have better cultivated in life is the genuineness of friendships than the comfort of family. When I was alone battling cancer in the Netherlands, I was blessed with the generosity of strangers who cared for me, cooked my meals, did my shopping, gave me money, and stuck closer than those related by blood. How can I not be grateful for angelic presences I have not deserved?

At that time, there was a clear reading that I was in the hospital, however, someone thought, if he could write, he must be well. Some view life in terms of incapacity, I see things in terms of ability, capability, capacity, and opportunity.

My blog is a journal, I can now refer to things I have written over 20 years of blogging and find the context of the journeys and adventures I have experienced.

Cultivating profitable relationships

What has really helped me in recent times is to have better husbandry of the lands of my life, the orchard trees that need pruning, the crops that need weeding, the livestock that need care, understanding what is sapping energy from what is productive and profitable.

The pruning I took on with gusto, those who during adversity complained rather than gave support were fair-weather friends, it did not matter who they were or how close the affinity, things that bear no fruit get chopped.

Lest I be caught lacking any self-awareness, I am probably just as unfruitful in another’s orchard, and they have rightfully chopped me out of their lives and set me up in the rubbish that needs to go up in a bonfire of vanities. It is well and thank you to those many, even in China who have read my blog daily; some come for a regular dose of another man’s many stories.

To them, I can dare to be honoured because they see something like a prophet in me. At the end of this blog, this is not what I set out to write, not that most of my blogs have ended the way I intended, even to me, it is a wonder to behold. We move, we thrive, we give testimony and write better stories. Amen!

Photons on the Prostate - I

Change and difference

I guess this does not really fit the Men’s things blogs so I have decided to write about my radiotherapy treatment as Photons on the Prostate, basically on how I feel and other experiences. The Image Guided Radiotherapy treatment I am having uses a photon beam rather than a proton beam. [City Of Hope: What’s the difference? Photon and proton radiation therapy]

We are advised not to change our eating habits, but there is no way to prevent changing something when met with the prospect of treating cancer. You adjust or the situation forces them on you.

The first thing I had to sort out to prevent bowel gas was in the drinks, and I miss the fizzy comfort of bubbles dissipating on my tongue as sparkling water creates a sating sensation even before you have swallowed. Still water is so bland and ordinary, it is how things are.

Dishwater tastes so good

Returning from the hospital yesterday, I stopped at my local supermarket to get decaffeinated tea and coffee, how this effluent of dishwater was ever palatable escapes me. The coffee having lost its potency with the absence of caffeine is perceptible to taste, at least to mine.

Two cups of coffee later, I can understand this is being done for a cause as there is no way I could have been persuaded of the benefit of it, I shall persevere. What I have not dared to try yet is the decaffeinated Earl Grey tea, I guess I’ll just pinch my nose when I drink it.

Getting tired of food

In terms of side effects, whilst it is early days, I do not seem to have much of an appetite for food, I have already been skipping meals long before I started treatment, an anticipatory response that I need to counter. Every desire to cook deserts me too.

There is some tiredness and early morning insomnia, whether related or unexplained, I cannot tell. A feeling of bowel discomfort with some urgency that is not presenting effect, I can only wonder what that is.

Men's things - XIX

Point to point

I went to The Christie Hospital today with just one concern, a question I only had the wherewithal to ask once I was presented with the situation for observation and experience.

Having had marks tattooed on my skin for the alignment of the radiotherapy beams, rather than allow the transparent film dressings protecting the three tattoo marks to fall off; I used a larger film dressing to keep them in place.

Giving myself an hour to arrive at the hospital, the heavy traffic was beginning to stress me out, but Brian comforted me with the thought that I would make it on time, and that I had nothing to worry about. I relented with a Yep!

Rearrange with consultation

Arriving at the reception, the secretary, her eyelashes would put the brushes on a street sweeper to shame told me my schedule had changed for tomorrow, putting my session back more than four hours. I have no issues with rescheduling, but as they have various means of contacting me, they should have called to inform me of the development.

We all do make other related or different arrangements and adjustments, even if we are giving priority to treatment, it is outside their absolute discretion to rearrange calendars and schedules without consultation with the patient.

On demand, sod off

Moving on to the waiting room, I was asked to do a micro-enema though I had a bowel movement this morning and to pass urine. This Shit-on-Demand (SoD) or Piss-on-Demand (PoD) requirement rarely works except if you are of a highly nervous disposition. The bowels refused to budge and after much strain, the bladder did empty.

At one point I could have broken out in a nursery rhyme, Goosey Goosey Gander came to mind. Where shall I wander before this presumably old man is taken by the left leg and thrown back into the gents to relieve himself under duress?

Positioned for radiation

My concern was about keeping track of my prostate if neither bowel nor bladder could be evacuated. As I took off my jacket, and my shoes and pulled down my trousers to lie on the hard bed of the linear accelerator (linac), I was told there was always a scan before the photon beam unleashed its deathly rays on my prostate. Aha! All concerns dealt with.

We were using Image Guided Radiotherapy (IGRT) [Cancer Research UK: IGRT]

I was positioned and centred on the bed before the machine began to whirl around me, hands on chest, breathing slowly, sometimes muttering in tongues, and about 10 minutes later, the radiographers returned to the room to set me off on my way.

We discussed the possible side effects for later in the treatment schedule and what times I would find convenient to attend my radiotherapy session. Hardly eventful, easy and painless, that is one down, nineteen to go.

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Blog - Men's things - XVIII

Infertility does not impact being fertile

At peace with it

One of the side effects of this radical radiotherapy is infertility, she said, in our conversation about what to expect after treatment.

I had made peace with not having children long before chemotherapy zapped the reproductive capacity of spermatozoa 15 years ago. Until that saying about planting trees which suggests the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago and the next best time to do that is now, for me, there is a limit to which bearing children should be discounted.

At ease with myself

My father was potty training my half-brother at 69 when I at 43 had made peace with the idea that I was 13 years beyond the time I would have found it a worthwhile experience to have children. I never even tried.

It was an advertisement on television that helped me settle this matter. A career woman talked of how she continued her education when her peers got married and raised families, and now, having achieved everything, she realised as the children of her old schoolmates were leaving university, she was just on ‘Incy, wincy spider,’ with her own child.

There was no point looking for that parenting boat, not only had it sailed away, it had docked at too many ports for me to swim out to sea to board it, I had better concentrate on being an uncle where I am allowed to be that to nieces and nephews.

Besides, my half-brothers could easily have been my sons, my father likely thought it was his responsibility apart from my brother to keep the name alive for posterity. You can never be too sure of the motivations for these things.

At these with life

Infertility is not an issue, and it happened because of a life-saving medical intervention. Indeed, people might be more concerned about sexual facility and function for pleasure than for reproductive purposes. The African man in me does not have a predilection for progeny.

In early 1990, I walked past the Cathedral Church of Christ in Lagos where a funeral had brought the most influential people in society to celebrate the life of a lady who had died childless, aged 93. What it brought to light was an inalienable fact, both the one with children and childless will be buried by children, who might not be yours. There is comfort in having lived a good life.

Infertility is not a disability that it becomes a state of mind, the world offers amazing ways to be fertile with imagination, ideas, insights, and inspiration to be just as impactful with the implements of our humanity.

Honour the day and bless the beauty it presents

Yusuf / Cat Stevens – Morning Has Broken (Official Lyric Video)

The day the Lord has made

As I sat in my living room thinking about how well today went, I felt I should be inspired to write something because there is a blessing that abides, abounds, and abodes with me that gives me an outlook and disposition I rarely can find words to explain.

Let’s look at any day in question, for in my case, every day for a long time has been a blessing, regardless of what happens in it, I have a triumphalist feeling that whatever a day brings will not dampen my desire to consider success and accomplishment.

Someone might say, the day has been difficult, probably, they even hate a particular time of day that it becomes a kind of confession that fulfils what inadvertently becomes prophetic. Whenever I wake up, I bless the Lord and would with great expectation address it as this is the day that the Lord hath made, I will rejoice and be glad in it. [Bible Hub: Psalm 118:24 (KJV)]

How can the day not turn out right if you have been given a day made by the God of beauty, wonder, and miracles?

The morning is a recreation

There are nights when sleep seems to desert me, I struggle to find the rest I need to be fresh for the day ahead. The alarm clock stirs me up as dawn breaks and I slap on the snooze button for the respite of another 10 minutes in which little is achieved compared to if you could get a snooze time of 30 minutes and consequently a power nap.

Then the strains of the hymn, “Morning has broken” seep into your consciousness as with a bounding leap out of bed, you want to celebrate the day like the first of the best, and you begin to own the beauty, the warmth, the bliss, and the sweet communion that it presents. “Mine is the sunlight! Mine is the morning, born of the one light, Eden saw play!” The hymn continues to define the day. [Hymnary.org: Morning has broken, Like the first morning]

The Boomtown Rats possibly unaware of the joy of the day or even the opportunity the week presents would sing in refrain, “Tell me why I don’t like Mondays.” I’ll tell you why you do not like Mondays; you do not see every morning as God’s recreation of a new day. Yesterday is gone forever, you are given a new start, each new day.

Then, the inspiration for the song itself was from a 16-year-old girl who thought causing the tragedy of a mass shooting at an elementary school would liven up the day. [Wikipedia: I don’t like Mondays]

One can only wonder how a life so bereft of love and the appreciation of goodness would think that senselessly taking innocent lives can be anything to contemplate.

She has been in prison since 1979 and her next parole hearing in 2025 is unlikely to give her any reason to like or dislike Mondays or any other day for that matter. How you rise for the day can quite easily define the rest of your life. [Wikipedia: Cleveland Elementary School shooting (San Diego)]

The cherished American toleration of daily tragedies

Just imagine, we are 45 years after that school shooting spree, and we still have these tragedies happening with such regularity in the United States of America like an incurable madness. To give this some perspective, it appears the first recorded school shooting was in 1764.

You might be forgiven for thinking it is a cherished American tradition, the way these tragedies are tolerated for the sake of the right to bear arms. There have been three school shootings in September 2024, alone. [Wikipedia: List of school shootings in the United States (2000–present), List of school shootings in the United States (before 2000)]

Arise, Shine

To conclude on the thinking that helped in writing this blog, I had an inward witness within that took me to this verse in Scripture. “Arise, shine; For your light has come! And the glory of the LORD is risen upon you.” [Bible Hub: Isaiah 60:1 (NKJV)]

There is a glow that comes with the blessing of a new day, you can be the light of it, the sunshine that makes everyone happy, the beauty that gives it meaning, and the memory that makes you full of gratitude. That is why each day is wonderful because as the glory of the Lord rises upon me, I rise to shine and give light to the joy of a new day.

How we live the life or death of our spoken words

Mind what you say

I was recently involved in a conversation that left me quite perturbed as my interlocutor stressed and hammed on about their difficulty with one issue or the other. Their belief in their precarity was such that I found it impossible to intervene and an intervention was dreadfully needed.

Usually, I stop or probably warn people about saying unwholesome and unprofitable things because I believe our speech has a spirit of creative energy and purpose. The words we speak carry weight about who we are, and how we think, and for all, consequently, define the circumstances in which we find ourselves now and into the future.

If you continue to speak about incapacity, inability, difficulty, and hardship, and hold expressions of pessimism that you inadvertently say with conviction, these words create the worlds around you and sadly you become a prisoner of your thoughts that have become your beliefs; what you say in words become your world.

Having the wrong perspective

It is a discipline to hold one’s tongue, choose words carefully, and keep one’s peace if we have nothing good to say about ourselves or others. Practising silence over expressing oneself might help review what we have avoided saying.

Then you ask, what best informs the background of thoughts that become words that show up as lived experience? You need a new perspective, a positive and progressive perspective, one that sees you in a different light, with opportunity, capability, and an unquenchable undefeatable spirit.

That is only possible especially if you are of the Christian faith, if you begin to see yourself as God sees you and then you say what God says about you.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ [that is, grafted in, joined to Him by faith in Him as Savior], he is a new creature [reborn and renewed by the Holy Spirit]; the old things [the previous moral and spiritual condition] have passed away. Behold, new things have come [because spiritual awakening brings a new life]. [Bible Hub: II Corinthians 5:17 (AMP)]

The new creation truth of knowing you have been reborn of God and living a new life is one we rarely grasp in any understanding or fulness, but knowing this change and that it is not one of effort, but of the grace of God is the beginning of renewal.

Know all good things about you

That the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus. [Bible Hub: Philemon 6 (KJV)]

We need to find out who we are from God’s perspective and acknowledge every good thing that is in us, not out of our own doing, but by and in Christ Jesus. Knowing this and thinking this along with seeing the great promises of God toward us would change our perspective and the words we begin to speak.

This brings me back to the crux of the matter, what we speak can create life or wreak the havoc of death, you would want to give life to ambition, to health, to prospects, to opportunity, to happiness, to the fulfilment of dreams and much else.

The tongue is a master controller

A good deal of this comes from what you have conditioned yourself to believe borne of the limitations of your perspective as a mere hapless human being or a creature of God’s manifest and limitless creativity.

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it and indulge it will eat its fruit and bear the consequences of their words. [Bible Hub: Proverbs 18:21 (AMP)]

What fruits and consequences of our words are we living and is it time to start speaking differently by aligning ourselves to what God thinks of us and the value God places on us that he sent His only begotten Son to the world to save us?

“For God so [greatly] loved and dearly prized the world, that He [even] gave His [One and] only begotten Son, so that whoever believes and trusts in Him [as Savior] shall not perish, but have eternal life. [Bible Hub: John 3:16 (AMP)]

Please click on the links shared with the Bible verses to see parallel translations for more understanding and context.

Men's things - XVIII

Rescued to the uttermost

The righteous person faces many troubles, but the LORD comes to the rescue each time. [BibleHub: Psalm 34:19 (NLT)]

This thinking is the fundamental of the challenges and triumphs of 2024, so far. The thought of rescue is a mindset that I am not alone and that there is help well beyond my capability, facility, or resources that plucks me out of dire situations into safety and security. This is a blessing as it means one is neither hopeless nor helpless.

In writing to a friend, to whom I was relaying the events of this year I realised that each month brought interesting and wonderful developments, I am full of thankfulness and gratitude, everything will turn out right.

A blessed year showing up

In January, 2023 had come to an end without any idea of what the New Year had in store, I attended a church service in the suburbs every turmoil set aside for fellowship and praise. Then I had to face some realities, a need for reengagement and the niggling issue of a blood test that had indicators of concern. I received good news and an invitation to attend the doctor’s surgery for some tests.

In February, the blood tests showed that I had anaemia and on the other front, a prospect was taking an inordinately long time to complete. I got to travel the farthest I had in more than 18 months and met up with some old friends who were glad to see me but preferred another. As I boarded my train, a blessing dropped into my life and a moment of great change beckoned. What I wanted was only deferred, I just needed to be patient.

Wisdom is the principal thing

In March, my joy was complete in that I was glad to be counted among the living, the thriving, and the blessed. On the blood front, the anaemia was dealt with, but my prostate was telling concerning tales. That needed checking out. Meanwhile, I had to manage my particulars and experience to fulfil all the requirements for an engagement which was sometimes stressful but not insurmountable. Where I ran out of ideas, wisdom came to rescue me in ways I could not have anticipated.

In April, I was ready for a new challenge even in areas where I thought I had little expertise, I felt it was an opportunity for growth. My doctor had a quick touch and felt my prostate was enlarged too and he referred me to the urology department of our NHS trust, and this set off a range of other tests and the need for an MRI scan. I had much better music to listen to this time.

You are owed an explanation

In May, as I was taking things in my stride, I was invited to the hospital to discuss the results of the multiparametric MRI scan. I had many questions before I could agree to have a biopsy of my prostate. The challenge of facing paternalism in medicine, where they do not believe you should be intimated with every detail that leads to a decision reared its head. We had an interesting encounter and a lasting lesson: I need to be treated as knowledgeable and respectfully informed.

In June, it was just a short email informing me that a period of review had been successfully completed. My annual checkup contained information that should have been better managed as I had not seen the consultant before the detail ended up in my notes, it was a careless mistake. However, I knew it was prostate cancer but that had to take a backseat, I was going to see Brian and that was a beautiful thing.

Celebrate life over adversity

In July, before returning to discuss the options for the treatment of prostate cancer. We had a wonderful time in Cape Town. Understanding what prostate cancer meant was daunting and neither of the intended procedures seemed pleasant when looking at the post-operative or post-treatment situation. I was sanguine as I began to understand things better to do things I had only dreamt of being able to do.

In August, I found myself embedded in a changing and exciting process where I automated and facilitated things that at first would have been painstakingly difficult, manual and prone to error. My confidence grew in areas where I would not have projected my abilities. Then another encounter with medical paternalism was both challenging and upsetting. However, I had got all the information I needed and was ready for my treatment plan.

Maintain the God perspective

In September, there is growth, blessing, anticipation, and expectation. Even as I begin treatment next week, I am also enjoying what I do, each challenge becomes an opportunity to see things differently and find solutions in exciting ways. I am thankful for the blessing of confidence, comfort, and love. To have love and friends who care so deeply and fondly for you makes it a wonderful world.

There are more things of goodness, mercy, grace, favour, and blessings, to come. I am irrepressible because the Lord delivers me fully, wholly, wonderfully, and beautifully. My mouth is filled with testimonies, this little inconvenience will pass, and each subsequent month will have more amazing things to share. The men’s things will dissolve into nothing, and God’s things will be astounding miracles.

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Thought Picnic: Eating flesh twice forbidden

Harking back in time

This is a story that seems to draw many laughs, yet it is the narration of one of my many experiences of racial abuse countered with the good fortune of a quick wit. I am sure I have relayed this on one of my previous blogs, but it finds some interesting resonance today.

I was in a bookshop on the concourse of Amsterdam Central Station when a brief encounter looking like a disagreement of sorts ensued. I have no idea how it started, but this man was soon spewing out expletives at me that my only response to him was to say, I do not speak like that.

In retort, he said, he would speak anyway he wants to, which was his prerogative, not that I cared much for it until he said, “A hundred years ago, I would have shot you.” Strangely, I was not shocked because we were not in that time of the past that he desired. However, my response just as he finished, “Two hundred years ago, I would have eaten you.” He did not have a reaction to that.

The natives as creatives

Indeed, the white man did bound around Africa and some uncharted regions of the world where some encounters revealed the magic of gunfire and for others who never returned, cannibalism did not have the strangeness it has today. A large cauldron, some excited drumming, and the natives were chewing the delicacy of rare meat not deemed untouchable as to be deified.

I cannot vouch for what my ancestors would have done long before my time. Still, as far back as we can trace the history, a good few were progressive and this fed the inclination of my near ancestors to seek knowledge, education, emancipation, and much more. I am a product of their tenacity and survival against all odds.

Heads are not that sweet

You may then wonder why I started this blog with the story told earlier. In the last few days, I have had conversations where I have been deemed blunt, frank, cruel, unforgiving, or even grumpy. Usually, someone would suggest I got off on the wrong side of my bed and when I suggested I only had one side to get off on, they implied I was climbing up the wall first.

In another situation, it would be me biting off their heads, as if I had travelled back in time for a stint in substituting brains for cauliflower cheese. Even I started wondering what could be in their heads that could be tastier than what I normally cook?

It speaks to my strong constitution that I have not reached to retch in a sickbag already. I could almost regret my riposte because people might well believe I have been picking my teeth with the finely honed bones of an Englishman and well, my crockery is of the finest bone without having to get to China.

For all my civilised mien, I was only trying to stop one heinous act with the benevolent sharing a catch, is that not what community is all about?

Men's things - XVII

Satisfying a curiosity

Today, I began a new journey that started just over six months ago with my desire to find out why a blood reading presented suspicions of anaemia that I was determined to track down and resolve. As I was at the doctor’s surgery to get blood drawn, at my insistence, they added another vial to check my Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) reading, it came back borderline normal.

The next visit 7 weeks later to check if the anaemic condition had been addressed included a second PSA test and this time, it was above the normal range and this has set us on the course of the discovery and consequently, the treatment of prostate cancer.

A computer tomography experience

I attended the hospital for a radiotherapy planning Computer Tomography (CT) scan the night before encumbered with insomnia even though I never felt anxiety nor concern and then to a morning that presented no bowel movement, much as I tried and a bladder that barely yielded to the urge for emptying.

I am even more fascinated by all the non-intrusive methods of looking inside the human body before doing anything. I have had the full complement over years and decades of, X-rays of teeth and chest, ultrasound of liver and kidneys, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of the spine and the prostate, and now, a CT scan of the pelvis targeting the prostate.

The CT machine presented a hard flatbed to lie on and its activity was just beeps and whirls, with me being passed in and out of the doughnut ring several times before I was tattooed with ink on two sides and in the middle just a few inches below my navel.

Zap the cancer to oblivion

After this, I had some blood taken for testosterone levels and another PSA test, just over 5 months after the last one along with a scheduling form for the radiotherapy sessions to begin in two weeks for 20 days. The times for the first 5 days had been scheduled.

To put it all in a nutshell and deal with that nut of cancer in the shell of the prostate, we are at the point where it is simply:

• Where is the prostate?
• We are coming to zap the cancer to oblivion and there’s no playing games with you.

Apart from the usually comforting conversation with Brian on my way to the hospital and after my appointment, I had already surmised I could not rely on my friend who had offered to accompany me. I guess he has more issues than the Vogue magazine. It is well.

I have had enough lone encounters with the medical establishment receiving interesting news; I do not consider any of them bad even if for some, such news has not only been life-threatening but also led to their deaths. I am blessed and fortunate to still be here to have new experiences, new testimonies, and the continued joy of living. This will pass.

Helping with research

After I got home, a researcher from the hospital called, they had missed me when I attended my consultation to ask if I would participate in some cancer research which could go on for more than two years. I had no issue with that, I informed the researcher, that the course of treatment I chose was informed by others participating in earlier cancer research, showing outcomes and other resulting benefits. I would not have that compendium of knowledge to access if they all had refused to engage.

When it comes to cancer today, we all benefit from the body of knowledge acquired over centuries of progress and advancement, those who died and those who survived, are contributors to the human experience of cancer and the medical expertise that treats it, I am grateful for everything that has brought us this far and will eventually lead to better ways of treating or even totally avoiding cancer altogether.

Men's Things Blogs

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Blog - Men's things - XVI

Manchester Pride 2024 - Between disinterest and stewarding

For a parade and a charade

The August Bank Holiday weekend in Manchester is for the Manchester Pride and one those of us who live on the borders of the Gay Village sometimes dread out of inconvenience and frustration. It is a time of endless cacophony that begins from Thursday night through to Monday evening with possibly a vigil in remembrance of those we lost to the AIDS plague.

For those who come the attend the events and many from out of town and even from abroad, it presents the prospect of wanton debauchery and the prescient profiteering of all the hospitality and services establishments that find the footfall irresistible to exploitation, even as punters and patrons submit themselves too willingly to the abuse of their respect and their wallets.

The Pride Parade on the Saturday afternoon is something to look forward to, though I could be inspired to residents’ rage just for the loudspeakers that get put close to my window or on the main street, not so much for the event, but for the testing of equipment that starts early in the morning when we are trying to lie-in and continues almost every quarter of an hour as if suddenly the equipment had given up. Let’s not think of if I were an American with a gun.

Diversity, not as we think it

This time they plonked down a mobile 120-seat grandstand on our street which I found out to be the judges view to rate the floats that passed by towards the end of the parade. I had a guest who had just moved to Manchester and a friend had asked me to chaperone him. Not much to be done, I would have stepped out of my apartment block with a folding chair and some bottles of water. I provided rainproof clothes and umbrellas too, when it rained.

However, I do wonder if the judges as my guest did see the diversity we observed was not as diverse as our community would suggest apart from accounting for the diversity in faces of the same identity group, like say, race? Not to talk of the fact that one float dressed up a black man in full uniform to drive their Bentley. Then the Gay Gordons in full Scottish attire had one of their contingent playing the bagpipes who was noticeably of African descent.

In the probably 250 that participated in the parade, there could not have been 10 that were representative of ethnic minorities, and this is where Manchester still fails to embrace the broader expanse of identity within this diverse community.

It was not helped by one such group removing themselves from the parade because of concerns about sponsorship in relation to the Israel – Gaza conflict. They were invisible when they should have erred on the pragmatic side of things, because there were Palestinian groups represented on the parade.

Just let me through

I was surprised that I stayed to watch the whole parade that lasted over 3 hours, and it was time to retire and that was for a good long nap. The only other times I ventured through the Gay Village that was gated off for the festivities was for church on Sunday and then the Pride Eucharist in the evening.

At least now, apart from security checks of bags, right-of-way is no longer questioned as it was even refused to people who just wanted to pass through about a decade ago.

Besides, I had on principle decided for years now, that I will not pay the extortionate prices for attending any of the Pride events even as those who find themselves shortchanged denied access to venues quickly at capacity to watch their favourite bands.

My plate did overflow

As a church steward at the Manchester Cathedral, I had offered to be on the rota for duties at the Pride Eucharist which was organised by the leadership of the Village Church that meets on the 2^nd and 4^th Sundays of the month at the LGBT Foundation offices on Sackville Street. [Manchester Cathedral: Pride Eucharist pamphlet (PDF)]

Cover of the Pride Eucharist pamphlet.

The typical activities would have been handing service pamphlets to people who had come to fellowship, doing the collection during the offertory hymn, and ushering the congregation towards the altar for Communion.

Then one of the wardens asked me to take the plate of offerings to the altar for blessing and I had hardly said yes to that when the convenor of Village Church came to ask if I would participate in the intercessory prayer part of the service. She already had my name on the prayer sheet before coming to chat to me. I obliged willingly at the honour.

My part included a 30-second pause for silent prayer, my clock ticked a bit faster than it should in my head, I counted to 10 twice, losing my ways somewhere in the simplicity of the aura of scrutiny as I continued to the end of my contribution.

It’s a wrap until next year

After the service, we remained for tea, coffee, biscuits, and cake, before a young man on army leave who had asked to speak with me earlier requested if he could play the grand piano.

He had such talent but was expecting of rebuke or derision when we so readily praised him. Sadly, some people are subjected to so much criticism that even what they are so good at, they are too unsure of demonstrating.

I guess all that became the highlight of my own Manchester Pride, disinterested, uninvolved, and almost curmudgeonly, except where it mattered more in cheering the parades and serving at the Pride Eucharist, until next year when again, we suffer, or we leave town.