My Prostate is Broken

It's been a few years since I've posted here, but my life has recently become eventful so I feel the need to write again.  Hopefully this saga, this absurd adventure on which I am embarking, will be brief and have a happy ending.

But before we get to the entertaining part of the story, I need to get very honest and a bit graphic about my current situation.  This is not something to be discussed in polite company over dinner, but on the other hand I think it ridiculous that guys never seem to talk about important issues specific to men's health.

So as the title says, my prostate is broken.  There's occasional blood in fluids that do not normally contain blood.  There's pain in my groin region that may or may not be related to other pains in my hip, back and abdomen (which could be overuse injuries from running).  There's a confirmed nodule on the prostate itself, and my PSA came in at over 200 (it was a perfectly normal 2.1 only 13 months ago).  Wow.  This is not the typical case of a slightly elevated PSA on a routine blood test with no observable symptoms.

There are three things that could be causing this, and my bizarre quest is to work with the wizards and sages (aka medical establishment) to eliminate two of the three possibilities

• Prostatitis, an inflammation and/or infection of the prostate
• Prostate stone, which may or may not be related to Prostatitis
• Cancer, which is far and away the most scary possibility given the sudden high PSA number

The other purpose of my journey is to bring awareness to the topic of prostates.  It's been my observation that breast cancer has much better marketing than prostate cancer.  September is prostate health awareness month and prostate cancer is symbolized by a light blue ribbon.  October is breast cancer awareness month and is symbolized by a pink ribbon.  Given that, I found it quite remarkable that the NFL used to explode in pink for the month of October, after not hearing a peep about prostates in the month of September.  Luckily that seems to be changing, as the NFL recently decided to broaden its October focus to include more cancers.  Suffice to say I still think men in general would rather talk about breasts than prostates.

With all that out of the way, on with the story.  My adventure begins with a conversation with a rather attractive woman, and within a few sentences was discussing my genitalia and sexual habits.  Of course, the context for this was a urologist's office, which makes the preceding sentence a bit less exciting.

And of course that lack of context works both ways, as a short while later a man I'd never met before walked in, introduced himself, proceeded to shove a finger into a body cavity, and I was strangely okay with that.  It was in this compromising situation that I found out about the nodule, and remembered Chevy Chase singing "Moon River".

I left the office with a prescription for an antibiotic to cover the possibility of prostatitis and a long lists of tests to undergo.  I felt overwhelmed and a bit sick, but the latter part could be a side effect of the antibiotic.

Then first thing on Monday morning I got a call back from the doctor, and found out my PSA results were "worrisome", so add a biopsy to the list of tests.

And that's about where I am now.  I'm really hoping I have an infection and/or stone.  How many times do you wish for that?

Tomorrow is my CAT scan, and I'll be taking the day off from work to focus solely on that.  All these tests seem to have an element of the bizarre about them.  In this case, I have to drink two bottles of liquid before hand that "may cause diarrhea like symptoms in some patients", which may be problematic when it's an hour long car ride to where I'll be having the test.

The adventure continues, stay tuned for the next exciting installment.