Isn't technology great? Everything that yo ever wanted to know is on the internet. You can open up your Google browser and read about the Donner party or David Gale . . . or prostate cancer. My husband has prostate cancer that he is finally getting treatment for. . . That is a long story that I won't tell, but suffice it to say he was diagnosed last year and just started his 43 days of radiation treatment.
When we saw the doctors last year they seemed to feel his was not a very aggressive form of cancer and as a matter of fact of the 12 biopsies taken there was cancer cells found in only one. So the delay, while frustrating, was not fear producing.
My husband has had no ill effects from his cancer (as far as I can tell). He has been just as active as before the diagnosis. As a matter of fact after the initial shock receeded there were times that I completely forgot that he had it. He went back recently for another PSA test and found his PSA had gone up considerably in the 9 months between initial diagnosis and the start of treatment. That was a shock because honestly I just KNEW that the powers that be and the goodness of the universe would have cured him.
That didn't happen so now he is in treatment. . for which I am grateful. He has to go 43 consecutive days (minus the weekends) for radiation treatment. He went for the first time on Monday. Today was his third treatment.
I went with him on Monday and was relieved to see other men with a spring in their step coming out of the radiation room. Two men came out of the treatment room and told their wives that, "Everything was on target." That the doctor had, "Looked at the pictures and everything was fine." Likewise my husband came out of the treatment room unscathed (on the outside as far as I could tell.)
He seems a bit tired these days. Is it because he stays up too late and then has to get up early in the morning to go for his treatment. Or is it because of his treatment, because the radiation is doing something to him (other than killing the cancer cells in his body)? Or is it because he read information about side effects of radiation on the internet which mentions fatigue and the suggestion has worked its evil magic on him? Who knows.
I am an optimist. I KNOW he will be fine. He really HAS to be, mostly because I need him to be and wouldn't know what to do if he was not. But also because he is strong and otherwise healthy and receiving good medical care.
But tonight I was looking for his blog to see if he had added anything new and saw many other prostate cancer blogs. I got sucked in- that's what technology does to you-and started reading the stories of other men with the same disease that my husband has.
Their stories were not filled with bouncing steps or positive comments from the doctors that everything was on target, rather they were laced with pictures of shingles and tales of chemo, diary entries of surgical procedures and tubes and more treatment and depression.
I KNOW those things are not in my husband's future. I wish no one had to experience them. I also wish I could go back to the wide eyed innocence I had before technology informed me of all the things that COULD happen.
Now I am feeling tired and scared - and they were not even effects that I read about. No wonder my husband has gone off to bed at 8:00. I'm turning off the computer, getting away from all the information that awaits me at the click of a button, and going to bed too. I'm just going to be still and try to forget.
