It should be stated at the outset that I have never been very good at following rules.
The first rule you learn when ice climbing is that you are not allowed to fall. This rule sounds funny, as mountain climbing tends to instigate a fair amount of falling. But when climbing ice, you are wearing and carrying many very sharp, pointy items that can do a lot of damage in a fall.
I have recently learned that the first rule in cancer, much like ice climbing, is not to get cancer. While eminently a wise rule, it is one that many have no control over. I recently fell into the camp of those who failed to heed the first rule in cancer.
The second rule in cancer is always to catch it early. I am happy to report that I complied with this rule and succumbed (albeit somewhat reluctantly) to the influence of my talented urologist, who, despite my misgivings, discovered cancer on my prostate. That was February 21, 2024, and since receiving that unwelcome news, my life has been whirling through the Alberta Healthcare system.
I know it is a common pastime to complain about how bad our healthcare system is in Alberta. I, for one, have been reticent to participate in this futile waste of energy, as my experience around the world in coffee has shown me what healthcare looks like in so many other countries; we have nothing to complain about. With that said, the system is definitely geared to responding promptly to patients with cancer.
Only seven weeks expired, to the day, from my biopsy results to my surgery, and I was under the Ai assisted robotic knife at the Royal Alex Hospital. As I sit here and type, it has only been fifty-nine days since I discovered I have cancer, and in two days, I get the blessed catheter and staples out of my body! What a relief that will be.
In short, I am damn lucky. The early detection of my prostate cancer and its subsequent removal all but assures (98%) me of a cancer-free existence, at least for the next couple of decades.
Trust me when I say that getting cancer at fifty-five was not on my bucket list. I have been poked and prodded by the most wonderful practitioners more in the last two months than the rest of my life up to this point. And I am thankful. I would be lying if I said it hasn’t been challenging. Cancer is one of those words that forces you to take deep breaths when directed at you. We all know people who have had or have cancer. You never expect it to be you, which truthfully is silly, as we all get “cancer” every day, but under normal conditions, our bodies know how to deal with rouge cells until one day they don’t.
Along with the prostate, Dr. St. Martin removed the lymph nodes that were attached to my offending organ. Those lymph nodes were sent away for analysis, and I am happy to report that from my reading of that report, the cancer remained localized to the prostate. So, I guess I am now a cancer survivor? That’s what makes me very lucky. I am relatively young, just turned fifty-five, and in decent physical shape, which helps tremendously in recovery. The removal of my prostate essentially removed the cancer from my body. I won’t need radiation or chemotherapy, which are brutally hard on our bodies (as I have been told). So, without being flippant, I won the cancer lottery; if there is such a thing, we caught it early, cut it out, and life goes on. There will be ongoing consequences of not having a prostate, but there are tactics to deal with those, and I am not dying. So, while I continue my life-long trend of not following rules, I got lucky with this one.
Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all daisies and puppies. The past ten days have been filled with pain like I have never experienced, too little sleep, and way too much new knowledge of bodily fluids. Along with the pain has been the support that I have felt from the healthcare system and so many people in my life who have shown me love and care along the way. I am an impatient man, always have been, and I am impatient to return to normal. I keep being told to take it easy, slow down, and let your body heal. I suck at all of that.
I have been reading Dr. Peter Attia’s book Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity while I convalesce. It has been a very interesting read. My accountant gave it to me just before surgery. Attia, a former oncologist and surgeon, is now focused on helping his patients live a proactive life to reduce their chances of ending up in the medical system. He talks about the four horsemen that come for us all: Cancer, Alzheimer’s, Diabetes and Heart Disease. All of these maladies take long periods of time to present themselves in our bodies, and there are many strategies and tactics that we can take to avoid or at least delay the onset of these often fatal diseases.
One of the best strategies for dealing with Cancer is early detection. This means discovering the rouge cells before they spread throughout the body to other organs. This is when cancer is difficult to deal with. I guess that is what prompted me to write this little blog post. This is only to encourage anyone reading this to get screened as advised. It is so easy to dismiss or ignore the advice to get your PSAs looked at, get a pap smear, or get a colonoscopy. These seem like trivial inconveniences, but the sooner you identify any issues, the better your outcomes will be.
I know I will be more diligent now regarding other screenings. I think that having one form of cancer probably makes me a likely candidate for developing other forms. My body has already failed to deal with rouge cells once adequately, so it makes sense, at least to me, that it might fail in that regard again.
I recently talked with a friend who is only six months younger than me. He had to admit that he hadn’t had a physical. Frankly, I get the reluctance to seek medical advice; I was one of those guys. But since I turned fifty, I have taken my health more seriously, got fit, and still don’t eat enough vegetables. In truth, it has likely saved my life, or at minimum, saved me from much more aggressive treatments.
So, let me end this post with some simple advice. One in two of you reading this will get cancer; those are the numbers. Those odds are hard to ignore. Do yourself a favour if you haven’t done so already, and get a physical. Take heed of the medical advice presented and act on it. If you aren’t already, add some physical activity into your daily routine as the science is precise: exercise is one of the best ways to prevent and delay the onset of serious illness.