Session 10

Session 10 March 4
I would have made it back easily for my 2 o’clock meeting from my 12 o’clock session but my bowels didn’t cooperate. For the second time I had too much gas in my colon. What interesting things this treatment brings. We go about in our lives having been trained assiduously to keep our gas in out of politeness and here I am being told to get up, get out in the hall and fart. Of course the language was less graphic but that’s what it’s about. So did what I needed to and paced the hall getting off a couple of good ones. It was enough apparently because I got back on the bed and they did the whole thing. After when I asked, I heard I still had a lot of gas further up but the local area was okay. There was an amusing moment as I left to do my thing because I was so determined to get out there and pass wind I forgot to put on my second gown. One of the therapists suggested I do it or start charging for the view. Everybody has to have humour in this business.

When they told me its time to radically alter my diet I was not surprised. No more broccoli and Brussels sprouts, no more beans for the duration. What they don’t know but my friends and family do is that I have to change how I eat as well as what I eat. I eat way too fast. I always have, having learned from my dad. Chewing everything and eating slowly makes me crazy but I’m going to do it because I don’t want to have to get up and walk and fart and I don’t want by colon damaged any more than necessary.

Waiting for the Bayview bus I started thinking about an article in the Star this morning, one that reported on American doctors not supporting annual PSAs or even digital exams and expressing the most the most concern about biopsies. The concern is about potential harm and unnecessary expense coming from false positives. Surgery carries with it the risk of serious damage as well. As usual the article included a sentence about how most prostate cancer is slow growing and unlikely to cause significant harm before something else kills you. As it happens, I am reading a book called Struck by Lightning on the subject of randomness and probability so the whole issue of risk resonated.

I guess, but do not know for sure that these medical opinions are based on rigorous large scale studies which weigh statistically the chance of harm vs. protection/cure stemming from early detection and maybe surgery or early radiation treatment. My own cancer is not slow growing. I have always kicked my butt because I missed an annual check up and may have missed earlier detection. There is a lot of this stuff in my family, a brother and a first cousin and I worry about my sons. My intellect is at war with my emotions on this issue. It is very hard to take a laid back logical view when it is having a profound effect on your own life. I can’t decide what to make of all this.

I wind up thinking that the kind of article I saw in the paper is dangerous because most of us men prefer denial to risk analysis when it comes to personal health. We need more and better ways to distinguish between those with slow growing cancer and those with aggressive varieties without causing harm through the finding out. Awareness building on prostate cancer should give a more differentiated picture.

Meanwhile there is the big drawing on the drop ceiling tile above the machine. A boy and a girl or a man and a woman ( I can’t tell which) are floating or flying above the CN Tower and holding a bunch of helium filled balloons. Clearly the balloons are not holding them up because the strings are slack. I can’t decide what to make of this picture either.

Tomorrow they are servicing the machine and I get the day off. It is a nonworking day for me so I am looking forward to it.