I’ve been getting a lot of questions about my health and activities lately, and last Monday I made what turned out to be a feeble attempt to answer them.
By which I mean I added a note to the bottom of my post of part three of Look, Ma!,”Gravity City” Interviews Larry Brody, failing to consider that some friends, family, and other caring people might not have as much interest in the interview as I do.
Turns out the stats for that particular post indicate that a whole lot of people didn’t have much interest, so for those of you who’ve been concerned – and believe you me, I appreciate all the concern to the point of being overwhelmed by it, here’s a slightly edited version of what the note had to say:
A few things in my life have changed over the past several months, and since we’re all buds here, I figure it’s time to risk the dread TMI and fill everyone in.
As many of you have noticed, I’ve had to take TVWriter™ offline and drop all my teaching/mentoring/consulting for health reasons, specifically the return of my prostate cancer (last heard from and regarded by the doctors as gone three years ago) and the accompanying further treatment and surgery.
Cryosurgery, to be exact. An interesting technique involving freezing the cancer cells and thereby sending them to their doom. I went under the medical ice cream scoop (well, I can’t exactly call it a knife), the last week in October, and as of this writing the prognosis is very good, with all the cancer cells previously identified by a new combo PET/CT scan technique not merely gone, but gone, gone, gone, glory hallelujah.
As I write this, I’m feeling pretty damn fine, even though the surgical recovery process is still ongoing. My good spirits for the most part are due to the fact that after 5 weeks of being annoyingly – and sometimes quite painfully – ensconced in the place that catheters traditionally inhabit in situations like mine, my catheter has at last been removed and I can now do exciting things like shower and touch myself and live pretty lead a normal day.
Except for the exercise and dog walking that have defined my normal days for most of my adult life. They’re more limited now but are returning slowly but surely to the excitingly obsessive excess that has characterized pretty much everything I do.
Posting this info (and the interview it originally accompanied) has been a fun way of celebrating my new situation, and know what? It’s even better than all the chocolate birthday cake with pink frosting I’ve been eating for the past few days.
Well, almost better. You know how it is.
Thanks for caring!
LYMI
LB
Glad you’ve got the Cancer thingy under control.
I had surgery for my colorectal thing about four years ago
and follow-ups every couple of months for over 2 years…to make
sure it wasn’t coming back! Hope yours stays away also!
Remission is the name of this game, I guess.
Vera
Thanks, Vera. Maybe I should write another poem: “Ode to Remission.” Funny how that particular status can become the most important thing in someone’s life. Well, not funny at all, I suppose. Just strange…and necessary. Stay healthy!