Photons on the Prostate - VII

Whether the weather

My radiotherapy session which was planned for much later when my scheduling sheet was filled last Monday had been brought forward three hours on my Thursday visit.

This did not make it any more convenient because Manchester was under the generous sprinkling of torrential rain and rain in the UK is so alien to us, traffic literally stops and puddles become lakes with cars aquaplaning like speedboats. Well, drop the speed part, my Uber had to swerve off the road for a filling of petrol.

You may wonder why I have resorted to getting myself to and from the hospital by bus or Uber when I had the pleasure of friends chauffeuring me there for the full week of the one before the last. I appreciate everyone wants to help, we are all full of amazingly good intentions that we express with urgency and a seeming willingness to do as we ask others to make that demand on us.

Yet, we are rather busy people and much as we would bend over backwards to help, we do have other things to do that are important, urgent, ordered, scheduled, or impromptu. An apology reaches our lips suffused with concerning equanimity as we deliver disappointment with the expectation that alternatives are readily available. The truth; is there are no alternatives, and people who have relied on us are being let down gently, kindly, and sadly.

Just do your thing

It becomes a logistical nightmare for the person being helped between knowing an arrangement is firm to scurrying to make your appointment because of unforeseen circumstances, and a situation totally out of your control because of the reliance on others. You feel worse for feeling bad for their feeling sad that they cannot help. The same people who insisted they would drop everything and blue-light you to the hospital rather than see you struggle on a bus or pay a king’s ransom for a taxicab.

It's just better to make your own arrangements and anything that comes in to alleviate the situation rather than encumber it is a bonus. Decline the offers promptly rather than be beholden and reliant on the accompanying stress that comes with things not going to plan. It is hard enough doing things on your own, but you know you are setting the agenda and doing things your way.

Seeing our future in one

On arrival at the hospital, I was assigned another suite, the fifth I have attended in 13 visits. I first sat in front of a family of four, and then I needed a little powdering of my nose in the ladies’ room. It’s got a mirror, and I can adjust my day cravat, I forgot my lipstick. When I returned, my original seat was occupied, so I chose a seat at the back.

My appointment time came, but there was going to be a longer wait, two other people were called in, and then out of the family of four, the older man stood up, those accompanying him were his wife, his daughter and his son. His adult son called him and gave him a big hug and he walked in and gave the staff a box of chocolates, it was his last radiotherapy session.

What a triumph over adversity as they flung wide the double doors for him to walk out to the camera phones held up by his family, it calls for a celebration. He wished the rest of the waiting room good luck as I urged him to go and ring that bell for victory. I did not hear the bell as was called into the suite.

Number thirteen done

We had a student who asked if it was okay to be present, I obliged without any fuss, we need students as much as we need professionals showing them the practicalities of what is involved, and she attends my alma mater university. One of the transparent derma patches needed changing to preserve the tattoo marking, a job I have always left to the personnel because they include markings before taping.

I took the bus back into the town centre because I needed to top up my supply of cranberry juice which eased that stinging urethra issue. Another one of those situations where you only get to tap on good intentions once before it becomes a chore for them.

Yet, people never fully understand why for times like this and during recuperation, having time with your partner and them being available to help is always a labour of love done with every desire to see you well and a joy to them that they can be doing something effective, effectual, and productive. Until you know, you never really know.

Blog - Photons on the Prostate - VIII

Blog - Photons on the Prostate - VI

Blog - Men's things

Thought Picnic: On refusing to be defined by cancer

Like an impatient patient

I became a cancer patient long before I had the option to consent because every cancer diagnosis in the UK gets put on what is essentially a national cancer registry. I was informed only as a matter of courtesy that this had been done. I would think it was weeks before I had a conversation with the consultant, and I had known of this diagnosis because of the poor sequestration and handling of information within my local NHS trust.

Beyond this, you strain every sinew within you not to be defined as a cancer patient, yet that is somewhat taken out of your control, my spirit, strong and commanding, willing with strength over the deprecations my body exhibits in symptoms of both the cancer and the treatment of it.

Chief among these side effects is fatigue that results in tiredness, irregular sleeping patterns, nocturnal insomnia, and a weakened timbre of voice in speaking, the urinary tract is slightly irritated, and bowel movements seem rather restricted.

Willing against bodily handicaps

Having determined I would attend church today as I could not last Sunday for the simple reason that I hardly slept the Saturday night before, the same was happening today. Unlike a fortnight ago, I knew I wouldn’t be walking to church, it was best to do this by Uber.

As the alarm clock went off, I did not bother to put it in snooze mode, I stopped the alarm and pondered whether it was beneficial to grab the sleep I could or rise to the challenge my body was unwilling to meet, but my spirit ruled against.

I rose and went to the bathroom for the essential ablutions. I bedecked myself in the apparel I wore for my last radiotherapy appointment on Friday before hailing an Uber ride to church. I arrived as the processional hymn was sung and sat beside a steward friend.

I only stood up for the gospel and for Communion, the collects in my saying lagged the congregation and no attempt was made to sing any of the hymns, my voice just could not modulate toward tuneful expression, it would have taken all the strength out of me.

The community, our church is

My absence last week left many quite concerned and I received messages and calls asking about my welfare. I was also not aware that many other members of the church knew I was having cancer treatment, and some were praying for me. I sometimes forget how closely knit our church community is.

If I had not attended church today, I would have had people at my door checking up on me, in a sense it is lovely to be noticed and missed. Next week is the Judges’ Service signifying the opening of the legal year. In other circumstances, I would have attended to steward the proceedings as it is a civil service, I think I’ll have a lie-in and recoup my strength.

Another Uber ride back home even in infirmity, let the weak say I am strong.

Photons on the Prostate - VI

Travelling and scheduling

Being prepared early for the hospital is one thing I have purposefully planned to give myself at least an hour for travel and this is not by bus, but by being driven there. If you arrive on time or well before time, there is a likelihood you could be leaving the hospital before your scheduled appointment time.

Talk of schedule, I met with two receptionists and between them the American pronunciation of schedule had taken a hold I could not ignore. The pervasiveness of American culture permeating every media outlet in films, on television, on the Internet and elsewhere means we might be losing out as we are the last holdout of the fight to the death to prevent the ruination of English.

Sides to the side effects

Meanwhile, finding ways to manage the fatigue is tending towards maximising my productivity when my energy levels are high, this tends to be just after midnight and having knocked a few emails and completed some pending tasks, I was tired enough to fall into bed and get a bit more sleep than usual.

My voice seems to be a wind vane of fatigue on a spectrum of strength to weakness belying something amiss, but it is still my voice, slow and soft to a whispering tone, words still properly enunciated and the mind as alert as it should be. The spirit is indeed willing, but the body is weak, daily bombarded with radioactivity meant to terminate every semblance of cancer on my prostate.

The bladder issues present a slight stinging feeling when passing urine and this I am told can be ameliorated by avoiding drinks with caffeine content and taking copious amounts of cranberry juice. I have not been that sold of still water even though I am supposed to be consuming litres of that stuff.

One other common symptom is with the bowel though I feel more constipated than diarrhoetic the glycerine suppositories seem to be more effective than the micro enemas, having got into a routine with it, doing the business at home within two hours of your appointment is better than the early day of SoD (Shit on Demand), the very least that is expected before going into the radiotherapy suite is to PoD (Piss on Demand). That is easier to do before you find yourself in need of an epidural while trying to birth cack.

Prostituted to many suites

There was cause for laughter when I was assigned to a different radiotherapy suite at the reception; which brings it to four suites I have attended at the halfway point. To which I quipped, “I am being sent around the suites like a prostitute.” Much mirth short of falling out of their seats. We can only do this with humour, positivity, and a sense of hope that this will pass.

That’s 10 hypofractionated radiotherapy sessions done and we are on the home straight Deo volente. Having a conversation with a couple where the man had already done 15 sessions and had a vast experience of prostituting in many more suites than I have, I could only point to one final thing to do when it is all done, he would soon be ringing the bell. [British Institute of Radiotherapy: Hypofractionated radiotherapy]

Blog - Photons on the Prostate - VII

Blog - Photons on the Prostate - V

Blog - Men's things

To that lonely man of Quernmore

The England that was

A big house stands lonely in remote Lancashire in the hilly countryside that looks far away from anything known bequeathed in a legacy to a man who served a family for a long time, and it became his hideaway.

Born in the closing of the Depression just as the Second World War began, to a young couple who might have ancestry that stretched to the ends of Yorkshire, steeped in the Victorian working-class values of duty and service, of which they were obviously exemplary.

The road sign to this village is one of those English placenames that is a Shibboleth, it sets apart the locals from the outsiders, and fascinating it is.

Happy and sad together

And 80 years to the day, tragedy and fortune struck, in Arnhem a father never returned and in Lancaster, a girl was born, and so was a life so marked from that day until the very end. He was the grandson of grieving parents as his mother cradled his little sister in her arms.

This is not my story, but one for which I seek to remember a man who was uncle to my friend. We all have uncles that we fondly remember, who we know and yet do not, whose persona reveals cleaves of the unsearchable travails of life represented in their quirks and tics.

In the passage of time, mother passed on for he never left her side to travel or get married, a lifelong protector even from a boy, seeing duty like he might have been told by his father as he left for war, make sure you take care of your mother. And now, he also had a little sister to watch over too.

The forever memories

When I met him during my many memorable sojourns to Lancaster for Christmas, his impression of things might have belonged to a forgotten age, but nothing he said was out of malice, it was a way of making conversation and you dug deep for wit and laughter rather than take offence.

I knew once the bond that brought us all together at Christmas had gone, he would become a total recluse back in his big house out of reach and out of sight, usually sought by his nephew and rarely seen except for letters and notes. He was free from the oath to care for his mother and the rest of the world could care for itself.

No one could blame him and what might never have been truly known was he was both liked and loved, every visit to another village in Lancashire would include the thought to ask after him. We sadly learnt that he had left his footprints in the sands of time now only to be remembered with a sigh and in dreams.

The lonely man of Quernmore (KWOR-mər) is gone. May his gentle soul rest in peace.

Men's things - XX

Insist and be insistent

Some encounters with the medical establishment can be unbelievably sublime and others exhibit inertia and obduracy, you might find pulling teeth a greater pleasure to enjoy. Here I was trying to get a sick note that I was told was easily obtainable and assured would be ready on Monday only to meet with a bureaucratic reluctance to fulfil what clearly everyone concerned knows is needed.

As with these things, I insisted against their prevarication, eventually someone cottoned on the idea that I was here for new excuses or postponements, something had to be done and so they sought out a late shift doctor and somehow found a stache of ‘Statement of Fitness for Work’ forms to be annotated and initialled by the doctor.

Their first attempt was clumsy, signing me totally off activities and the hospital stamp was upside-down. My reaction brought a reconsideration, and they did it properly with the caveats I wanted. It was an easy enough job with the will and opportunity to do it, hardly an encumbrance, this is a hospital, for crying out loud.

Just that spike is all you need

As I was chatting to a doctor, I also felt I could ask about the last two blood tests conducted a fortnight before my first radiotherapy session, my glimpse of the blood form indicated both the Prostate-antigen specific (PSA) and testosterone levels. I could not find the results anywhere as they were not communicated to my GP.

My PSA had fallen to within normal levels and testosterone was reading levels on the low side of the normal range. There must have been some other indicators in earlier blood tests to suggest I did not need hormone therapy before radiotherapy as testosterone has never been in the cachet of tests I have done before.

If I had not unilaterally pursued the need to recalibrate readings from my blood tests in February towards remediation by intervention, we would never have been on this track to discover prostate cancer and it might have been seething and growing undercover, but for that spike in my PSA in March that forced an investigation.

Do the graft on your bloodwork

It is no doubt incumbent that anyone with a modicum of literacy must take immediate interest and seek to understand what the results of blood tests are whether they fall in the normal ranges for your demographic and where they do not, ask questions and be unrelenting until this is explained in the simplest of terms. Err towards interventionism than otherwise, cancer is not something you wait and see grow like a wild weed in your body.

Demand answers and seek a second or even third opinion, speak with experts and learn all you can to be sure you are getting the best treatment towards the most beneficial outcomes. If you must go private and have the means to do so, do not count the cost and end up paying a costlier price.

The goal is the best outcomes

It took 7 months to get from my first request for a blood test to where the prostate cancer is being effectively treated with radiotherapy. I will cover in more detail sometime in the future, why I opted for radical radiotherapy over a radical prostatectomy. It was about the post-treatment quality of life more than anything else.

If anything, and for about 15 years, I have learnt and understood that your biggest advocate for the best outcomes when engaging the medical community is you, your voice, your initiative, your instigation, and your relentlessness. You are the centre of your diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic options. Remember, it is always your body first before it is their Guinea pig, that premise is non-negotiable.

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Photons on the Prostate - V

Tolerance helps through

My radiotherapy session yesterday was the latest in time for all visits to The Christie Hospital at 18h15, it represented the longest time between the weekday treatments as there are no weekend sessions. I was first in on Thursday morning at 08h00, the receptionists and staff had not arrived when I got to the hospital for my appointment.

With 7 done, we are over a third of the way through it and I have a better understanding of what to expect. I am tolerating radiotherapy well, but fatigue is a downer, much as I want to be active the body is sending signals I cannot ignore, and tiredness gets respite with sleep at irregular times leading to nocturnal insomnia where you wake up in the middle of the night and even though you are tired, you cannot sleep.

The side effect is more related to fatigue than insomnia being a documented side effect of radiotherapy when it applies to the prostate. It royally screws up the day that you need to become flexible about how you are productive.

Take each day

I would do whatever I can when my energy levels are up, regardless of the time of the day, and take the rest as needed when the fatigue sets in.

The waiting rooms during the evening sessions are quite busy and this time, as I was waiting to be called into my usual suite, I was reassigned to another suite where I was immediately called in for my radiotherapy treatment.

One other thing I have noticed is my ambulatory performance is quite low compared to my usual walking speed, it reminds me of the months of recuperation after chemotherapy in 2010, I just took my time putting one foot in front of the other knowing I would eventually get to my destination. The distance to the hospital on my good walking days I could do in 60 to 70 minutes. It is not something I have contemplated currently.

The smart thing now is prioritising the responsiveness to treatment over other situations and variables, and making the best of the weekend breaks on the treatment plan.

Blog - Photons on the Prostate - VI

Blog - Photons on the Prostate - IV

Blog - Men's things

Thought Picnic: Tough love is loving yourself

Get a good perspective

We can find many excuses for all life's misfortunes and spin narratives that make the most intriguing tale of woes. Yet, one might hazard the thought that whatever we have experienced pales in significance to what others might be suffering. That is usually the case.

“I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.” Helen Keller.

That sense that the world owes us something we thought we should have had but never got, the feeling that no one is bothered about you because you have inadvertently become self-serving, self-centred, and selfish, magnifying your situation to gain undue prominence that the world even begins to revolve around you.

Assume some responsibility

You take every opportunity to blame everyone and everything but yourself. You were not loved like you should be loved, you never heard anyone say they were proud of you, and you fill your world with the misery you have created around you believing no one else cares.

No one likely cares about you because you have contributed nothing to foster the relationships that matter, taking only and giving back nothing. Those who know you have been shy of telling you the truth because you live in a Utopian mirage, and you hope it is the reality it never will become, your indulgence giving vent to your own wild delusions and self-deception.

Just love yourself

Alright, you were not loved; shit happens, then you were never commended; not everything is praiseworthy, and the way you live might not be pleasing to many; get over it and get over yourself.

What are you doing for yourself? You can start by loving yourself enough to not care whether you are loved by another or not. Like the song "The Greatest Love of All" says, "Learning to love yourself; it is the greatest love of all." Let's try that as everyone else is quite happily living their own lives regardless of whether you exist.

You have to give yourself the chance to just love yourself better and a little more and forget the past of not being loved.

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!

Blog - Photons on the Prostate - V

Blog - Photons on the Prostate - III

Blog - Men's things

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.

Blog - Photons on the Prostate - IV

Blog - Photons on the Prostate - II

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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.

Blog - Photons on the Prostate - III

Blog - Photons on the Prostate - I

Blog - Men's things

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.

Blog - Photons on the Prostate - II

Blog - Men's things

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.