Health And Wellness

It’s Deadly And Coming For You Or Someone You Love

The silent and deadly killer that can be on you without you even knowing it’s already killing you.

Image by vocablitz from Pixabay

It’s a painful subject for some, but it’s a necessary topic to save someone’s life. It’s gotten worse, and that means not enough people are talking about it. When was the last time you considered your prostate, or that of someone you love?

For guys, this is about the least favorite medical topic to get into, short of maybe testicular cancer or that painful burning sensation after meeting the wrong woman. Years of deep-seated homophobia instilled an “eww” factor into the prostate check.

We’ve got to get over it, guys! Studies aren’t playing in our favor. And the bad news is that some of you might already have cancer started in your prostate, and you might not be aware.

Worse yet, it might be the later stage, metastatic prostate cancer, and you’re already on borrowed time. That was, in my case, how it happened. That’s right, I’m not just writing about this because it’s Prostate Cancer Awareness Month.

In February 2024, I went to get a refill on a medicine. The doctor’s office advised that I hadn’t had a CBC done in five years. I was honestly coming off the healthiest five years of my life, despite three bouts of Covid-19. But I had turned 50, so it wasn’t a bad idea. Unfortunately, by the time I was there, they could queue the violins.

This is a good news and bad news situation. When it comes to testing, the old method of putting a finger up the tailpipe is no longer the preferred initial test. If you’re over forty and wondering when they’re going to ask you to drop your pants, bend over, and sing Moon River, stop wondering. It was demonstrated that the test was no longer effective.

It’s all done with a blood test, at the beginning anyway. If you’re blood test shows a PSA of 0–4, you are in good shape. As it turns out, an 8 is likely precancerous to stage 2, from what a friend of mine admitted about his case. When your PSA comes back at 329.8, your doctor may tell you that he’s sorry.

By the time diagnostics were done, I achieved a 941 PSA. That was in less than three months from the 329.8. And I hadn’t felt any symptoms that would tell me that I was sick. From I feel fine to your dying, Mr. Morton.

According to WebMD, Advanced Prostate Cancer cases are on the rise. Some of this might be attributed to the years that many didn’t see a doctor due to COVID-19 restrictions. Other cases may be due to aging populations and men not making a point to get checked. I expected to get checked when I hit 50. That number is now 40, and my care providers never mentioned getting a prostate exam.

It’s been a year and a half since I first heard those daunting words. And I now know far more than I thought I would about prostate cancer. But that’s part of battling the disease. Knowledge is more than half the battle when it is your life on the line, or it’s your future health.

Tonry, C., Finn, S., Armstrong, J. et al., CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Takeaways

During **Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, **it’s important to remember how this can sneak up on you before you know you’re even sick. While every story is different, it can’t be stressed enough that you can be dying before you are aware of the problem. The only way to end prostate cancer right now is to make sure our doctors are checking us.

It’s a small gland, barely noticeable most days, but as you become sicker, you can feel where it is.

Yes, it’s not fun to have biopsies. It felt like a kinky experience with the Terminator, but the biopsy was the only way to know for sure how strong the cancer was, and to get samples for testing to help the doctors know what to do. But remember, what’s the option?

But some medicines are showing some promise. It still has to be caught in time, and you might not want to rely on just the pharmaceuticals. Initially, my prognosis was so bad that they expected my funeral would have already happened. And yet, I’m still here. The pharmaceuticals help, but there’s also a relatively inexpensive supplement that I take, and while I feel some things, and I am more limited in what I can physically do at 53 than I ever imagined, I’m still able to live for a while, be here for my family, and hopefully be here for the next promising thing that fights prostate cancer.

As medicine and research are constantly evolving, that’s the goal for cancer patients. Finding a way to live long enough to see the cure.

Guys, get checked. Ladies, encourage the ones you love to get checked. The earlier it’s found, the better the results can be.