Three months ago, I was waiting for the results of my first post-surgical PSA test. Unfortunately, prostate cancer can recur many years after apparently successful treatment, and requires lifelong followup. For the next few years, I have to get a blood test every 3 months to see if the PSA rises, and at least annually thereafter.
The appointment was something of a moment of truth, to determine if the surgery had really been a success. In the weeks leading up to it, I was highly anxious. Particularly because the pathology report, and the surgeon, had left some doubt about whether the surgery had gotten all the cancerous tissue. By the time the day itself rolled around, I had half convinced myself that the news was going to be bad, and the results would show that I still had cancer. More than half, in truth.
At a teaching hospital like KU, you have to wade through the residents before you actually get to talk to the doctor. Mandy and I met with the resident, but I barely heard the questions he was asking. At the end of his exam, he looked at his file and told us the doctor would be in to see us shortly. Then he suddenly asked, “Has anyone told you what your test results were yet?” We were caught off guard, and just shook our heads, when he said, “Undetectable.”
The relief was startling after all the thinking I’d done about it, the nearly endless loop of hope, then uncertainty, followed by a little fear. To a certain extent, I wished for the person I was before I learned I had cancer. A certain innocence had been lost, and my own mortality was no longer an abstract idea. I feared the cancer. For while, every little pain made me remember, and wonder if cancer had returned or spread. This may fade over time, but probably never leave me completely.
I don’t want to sound like I’m making more of this than it is. I got off easy, as far as cancer goes. I didn’t “fight” or wage some heroic battle against cancer. I was sick, the doctors fixed me, and now I’m better. There are many people who are facing much more serious struggles, and wish they had only to deal with the problems I did.
During this period, through some people who reached out to me and through common contacts, I started following several stories of people affected by cancer - some my age and younger, some not that much older. One just died today, and another was told that hospice care was the only thing left to try. I’ve read their blogs from the point at which there was hope and determination, through the fear, and finally to the stage where they had to face the realization that they were not going to survive their disease, and even tell their kids about it.
While I can’t relate to dealing with it at that stage, I do know what it’s like to think about leaving a vibrant wife and two young sons, to think about what could have been if things had turned out worse.
I didn’t write anything about it at the time of the appointment, maybe for fear I’d jinx it, but I’m a different, calmer person this time. Tomorrow, I go in for my second checkup.
