So. I find myself at another of Life’s great crossroads—one of those places in time when a milestone has been reached—and I’m clueless as to how to think-feel-act in reactions thereto. As I always attempt to keep my feet and jumbled brains firmly planted in whatever reality it is that is, I have long attempted to look at these Life intersections from whatever true perspectives there are. And as Perspectives is my middle name, there are many and varied that lie—lay perhaps—within the reality of this new situation in which I now exist.
Let me stop for a moment and reflect upon whether I have used the correct word, or not, when I said “milestone”. I know that most times that particular word is used to define moments of great positive gain or achievement—like first landing on the moon, or Constitutional Amendments. But can’t milestone also be used when a negative momentous event occurs? Me- I can faithfully say to you that I think Trump’s election was a milestone, and not a good one from any of my perspectives. Unless, of course, it affects a massive backlash and a return to more civilized government.
OK, stop. Before my ADD causes me to accidentally hit the Big Red Button, some background. On a Monday morning a month ago I wrote to you, and among other things I mentioned that I had finally determined at what point of pain and suffering I would consciously choose to check out of this mortal mess we call Life. I had been in conversation with my God and my Big G seemed to confirm my thoughts. What I left unsaid was that I had an appointment later that morning to meet with my urologist to discuss the latest routine checking of my PSA and digital inspection of my rebellious Prostate gland. This routine monitoring had been confirming that the visits with The Great Radiator three years ago had punished my criminal prostate into continued good behavior. Much like electro-shock therapy as I see it, radiation can elicit remarkable behavioral changes in treated subjects.
For those not already in the know:
- Urologists are the physicians charged with doctorating on a man’s prostate, a hateful little bag of both pleasure, and pain;
- PSA is Prostate Specific Antigen, a measure/marker used to determine just how naughty a prostate has been, and;
- A digital inspection is when a urologist, or one of the other medical professionals, pokes a hopefully greased finger up your ass to massage the small orb in order to assess its size and texture to determine if it has grown abnormally and if it feels like any tumors or other growths have started. It seems this personal intimacy is an important aspect of prostate treatment.
For my part, back to when I was diagnosed, investigated Treatment options and then had treatment administered, I had so many fingers poked up my ass I started to like it. And like any child having discovered something new, I wanted to control the happiness.
“Hey Doc, can Stacy do my inspection today? Hey, or what about the new girl? You know, the new one who checks my insurance? Alice, I think is her name and I’m certain she’s at least twenty. She has pretty hands, don’t you think?”
Not every medical professional is good at these inspections. I had this one guy, this Asshole tech for one of my pelvic MRI tests, shove his finger up my ass like he was angry at the world. Little fucker disappeared rather quickly after I promised to grab something with a long handle from the janitor’s closet to probe his ass when my test was finished. I guess what I’m saying is that you want your digital probers to be gentle but usually you hope they are in it purely for medical and professional reasons, unless they have a pretty smile and interested eyes.
Again, I must admit that I used “usually” correctly right there.
But I digress. In Santa Fe my doctor was a kind, thoughtful and highly respected urologist with a big heart, fantastic resume and a slow hand. Here to Tejas, my new insurance has required I be relegated to a man who did the following:
So, later that Monday morn, I drove over to my Texas urologist’s office and sat for almost an hour before getting into the exam room to get my periodic PSA results. The doc walked into the room, only nodded at my, “Good morning,” and said to me, he looked me in the eye and said, “Your PSA has spiked and you’re in trouble. You had aggressive cancer to begin and it’s aggressively growing again. But there is hope…MD Anderson has an experimental surgery where they remove your bladder, prostate, anus, a length of colon, testicles, lymph nodes and some other stuff. I can get you a referral. It’s major-major surgery and recovery is difficult but it will save your life. You need to get another pelvic MRI and a full-body bone scan. You need the tests no matter. Get those done and come back and we’ll discuss it.”
And he walked out. That motherfucker dropped the “You’re dying” shitbomb on my head”, tells me that my salvation is to become a human outhouse, and walked out. As I was too stunned to properly organize my thoughts, I didn’t hunt that cold asshole down and rip his lips off. It wasn’t until I’d spent a half-hour in the car back to home, whimpering like a baby, that I became pissed. When I told the Squirt my newly-hatched plan to wait outside the doctor’s office to kidnap him and lop off his lips, eyelids, ears, nose, pecker and scrotum with these nifty garden pruning shears I got off Amazon Prime, she tells me, she says, “Look, asshole, please don’t do that unless you plan to give the goat dog and me our suicide pills. I’m too old to break-in another human and Yoda’s too dumb to make it without me.”
She convinced me that my last major act on Earth should not be acting out an actual murder, and she remained unconvinced that the doc would live after I mutilated him. We decided to update our pill stashes. As I mentioned, I had earlier decided what my terms for continued life would be during a dream a few hours before this medical revelation, and becoming a human outhouse would be enough to get a thumbs down.
I made appointments for the two tests, then the dogs and I started making end-of-life plans. We decided who we wanted to see one more time, food and drink we needed to savor, places to visit and how to go out in style. But to make a long story short, let me give you an update.
I did both tests and met Doctor Shithead, this time 45-minutes late, to discuss the results. He walked in the exam room reading from the computer tablet he holds instead of a clipboard filled with paper medical files. He obviously hadn’t looked at my test results because he ignored my greeting and says to me, he looked up from his screen and mumbled in surprise, “Well, it seems that your bone scan and MRI are completely clear and clean. You do have some arthritis and other joint problems in your hips, knees and elsewhere, but your cancer is still contained and you haven’t developed any new tumors. We’ll continue watching you and monitor your PSA. When it hits 10.0 we’ll talk about treatment options.”
For a second time my having been stunned saved him from a bloody final hour and me from prison. While not facing imminent death, it seems my life clock skipped all the ten o’clock hour and restarted at 11:45. And for a second time I’m facing a cancer battle and this one will have fewer, less palatable options than the first. While I don’t have one of those “You have X number of months left” diagnosis, I do have a serious cancer issue with no palatable treatment options.
I’m working hard to not totally freak and I’m resisting the urge to say, “Fuck it, I’m getting a key of coke, an AK-47 with a few thousand rounds, and going asshole hunting.”
I had this dream one time where I somehow managed to remove every major political asshole in the entire country and was awarded with the Congressional Medal of Honor and a lifetime subscription to Oprah’s O Magazine. I was able to maintain the pace for all that political removing by snorting coke. As snorting coke would still be one of my favorite things should I have the money and health, one of my plans is to spend my last, dying $25K on a big bag of that shit. Inhale the last line with my last breath.
Anyway, as my psycho therapist, Dr. Sam I. Am-Johnson, always asks, “What’s your point in all this, Mooner. What, precisely are you trying to say?”
The answer is: I don’t fucking know. I’m sad? I’m pissed? Scared? I still have a couple good years left or several miserable years with experimental surgery. There are many facing far worse dealios than am I, but mine seem more important when contemplated by me.
And now, Walmart has done something nice for its workers. Not salvational nice, but any wage increase for Walmart workers is important. So Fuck Walmart, but use lube!!!
