December 21, 2008

Due to the overwhelming lack of responses to my blog, I feel I must warn you, I am going to continue anyway.

If I remember correctly I left our hero (me of course) facing his doom. OK I am going to pause here, from now on I will refer to our hero in first tense, I mean what gives with the our; he, his, they etc? Now where were we? Oh yes, I remember. I believe I had just been told I was running head first toward my impending doom. My doctor knew of my fragile condition, and refused to alter his Monday day off policy, or his out of town leaving me to sweat policy. He left me to my own mercy for the week end. I of course did what anybody in my frame of mind could do,I carried on as if my doom really didn’t matter. It was business as usual.

Before I continue I really must start with a disclaimer: I really like my doctor, he is excellent and has treated me with respect along with giving me the utmost medical care.

With that being said and understood, remember I am facing certain doom. I am at my limits. My weekend has been ruined. I want immediate answers and solutions. I could ask the age old question "why me?" But instead I ask a brand new question "why can't the doctor work on Mondays? And what is so all fire important that he needs to be out of town in my hour of crisis?" By the way neither question was answered. My weekend progressed along just fine. The rest of the world apparently didn’t get the “impending doom of Raballard” news flash.

But I digress, the appointment was now etched in stone. (OK that's a metaphor, because I am pretty well sure my doctor has all the modern conveniences of an appointment calendar) I will hear all about my fate Wednesday, October 1, 2008. There was nothing I could do but comfort Mrs. Raballard.

The weekend for her was not kind, She is the worry-wart kind of person, and is prone to a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Also the weekend dragged very slow, as if someone had found a way to alter time, and not in a good way. Alas after millions of tears shed, family and friends notified, wills revised (not really I don't have a will) it was finally judgment day. Did I fail to tell you my appointment had been changed from the morning to the afternoon? So finally it was judgment day, a little later than I had planned but judgment day never the less.

We all went to my appointment, my wife, daughter and I. You don't think I am going to face this all alone do you? Remember, my wife is an emotional wreck. She doesn’t take it well with the gloom and doom stuff. Plus I needed someone to drive home, just in case I was too much an emotional wreck. It is very hard to drive with tears flowing down ones cheek.

We left Daugter Raballard in the reception area, just in case the doctor discussed nether regions that would embarrass her or me. Mrs. Raballard and I were escorted to the waiting for the other shoe to drop waiting room. I can see why they call them waiting rooms. We waited, and waited, and just for good measure we waited some more. After almost an hour the doctor came in, carrying my file. (Which is about the size of War and Peace.) He was also carrying a lovely color map of Venus. He showed me what I thought was the next NASA landing site on our nearest planet. I was soon to discover it wasn't a map of Venus or any other planet in our solar system. The lovely 8x10 was a map of my bear-trapped "keester". The landing site happened to be my cancer. (I had no idea that cancer was so colorful)

Daughter Raballard joined us after the color, model demonstration was complete. The doctor did not say anything to embarrass me. We settle down for some intense negotiating, problem solving, and solution finding. I was told I had four options.
Option 1: I could do nothing, prostate cancer is a slow moving cancer (well most of time) If I was to choose to do nothing he could almost guarantee maybe ten years of good life, with another three to five years of not such a good life.
Option 2: I could use radiation, which gets out the cancer most of the time.
Option 3: I could freeze the cancer out, which has the same results as the radiation.
Option 4: I could have the cancer surgically removed. He also said there are certain drawbacks when that option was chosen. I of course am too embarrassed to say those drawbacks. Suffice to say I had very little possibility of any chance of ever joining the Mile High Club.

We had already decided this was a no-brainer. We deliberated for about fifteen seconds on the previous Friday night. We were going to choose surgery. We told the doctor we would opt for surgery, and I crossed the Mile High Club off of my to do list. With the decision made the only thing left to do was to schedule the appointment for the surgery. I could only hope the surgery date landed on a day my doctor worked.

Within fifteen minutes my surgery was scheduled. The appointed date was to be October 28, 2008, a date that will live in infamy. I was ecstatic to learn it was a day my doctor worked, and a day he planned to be in town.

I also learned a very valuable lesson on the day of my impending doom, judgment day. I mean other than my "keester looks like Venus. The lesson was simple and to the point, there is no such thing as a "find out you have cancer-schedule your surgery and be done with it procedure" That is only the beginning. There are plenty of other lead up to the surgery procedures that had to be done.

Well fan, and soon to be fan, my time is up. (I mean with the blog for today, not as in the meet your maker time is up) Look for part three of my adventure, coming to a blog near you.Please feel free to leave a comment on your way out to the lobby.

Until next time.