The King of Pain

Pain is an issue no matter what our health-related issues might be. At least for me, it’s an issue that gives me pause. I don’t like pain. I’m not one of those people who thrives off of it or gets excited by it, either giving or receiving. So when I receive pain unexpectedly, especially at high levels, I get angry. It’s a problem for me.

The day was approaching for me to get the fiducial marker balls and spaceOAR gel placed in my body. For some reason when I say, “Fiducial markers” The image of Drax from Guradians of the Galaxy pops into my head when he kept saying “Harbulary batteries.” I don’t know why, but it makes me laugh.

Previously I mentioned that I chose my urologist, Dr. Sulek, to do this procedure because of the promise to give me a general anesthetic. At that time, it was mentioned it would be a prudent measure due to the fact that I recently had a biopsy, which could make the marker placement more painful. Spring forward to this week.

The care team for Dr. Sulek called to give me my prep routine for getting ready for the procedure. Since I wasn’t getting a general anesthetic anymore, I could eat and drink the night before and even drink the morning of up to 2 hours before the procedure. I just couldn’t eat. And, by the way, I would need to do not one, but TWO enemas- one the night before and one the day of. Terrific.

Truth to be told now that I had one under my belt, these other two came and went no problem. I even knew which way to insert it without the instructions. To paraphrase an old Johnny Bench commercial about paint, I had no runs, no drips and no errors. I also had none left, to continue the baseball talk. I knew they wanted me to do these to eliminate any “obstructions” while trying to place the gel, but I also wondered if they helped get rid of gas so that that didn’t become an issue during the procedure, either. Time will tell.

But I digress. As I waited for the appointment time to come, I started researching things like the effect of Pronax gas. Would I really not feel anything? Would I be so out of it, I really wouldn’t “feel a thing?” And I researched the procedure itself. These fiducial markers (harbulary batteries) were approximately the size of a grain of rice. A little bigger than I thought and that meant we were talking about a larger gauge needle. Great. Something else to look forward to. But I steeled myself and I remembered the words of Schnelle, Dr. Sulek’s assistant, who said “Trust me. You won’t feel anything, I promise.” This reminds me of the old joke, “How do they say ‘fuck you’ in New York City? ‘Trust me.’”

The time came and we hopped in the car and had a pleasant, traffic free ride there. It was the same building as all my biopsies, so pretty easy to find. And there were two doors, which I had never really noticed before, so we parked near the second. Little did I know what awaited me inside and exactly how much Schnelle has said “fuck you” to me.

After receiving the required mispronunciation of “Mr. Ree-ah-mart” (fuck it, I might just change the pronunciation at this point), I took a seat and was told I’d get called back in the next 30 minutes, Sure enough, about 20 minutes later, a young barely-out-of-high-school girl called me back and off I went. Everything would go downhill from here.

She introduced herself but I missed her name because I was deep in thought regarding what was about to happen, so I’ll call her nurse Jenny, because that might actually have been her name.

“How are you today?” nurse Jenny asked with a smile.

I tried to come up with something whimsical to say, but everything was a blank.

She seized on the silence, “Probably as good as you can be considering the circumstances, right?”

“Yep, I’d say that’s about right,” I agreed.

She lead me down a long, straight hallway which occasionally intersected with other hallways and had doors every few feet on both sides. This place was actually pretty massive.

“Do you need to go to the bathroom?”

Now I considered it for a minute because I did have to pee, but I wondered if they would make me pee before I left today. But since no one had told me that, I told her “yes” and evacuated my bladder.

A few chairs lined the halls outside the bathroom so I waited in one for her to return, then she lead me to another small room around the corner.

“This is where we’ll be doing your procedure,” she informed me

The room was small and had some cabinets and a sink making nearly a “U” in the first half. The second half of the room, which was divided by a curtain, had a bed, some surgical equipment and the internal ultrasound in a cart to my left. I immediately regretted It that I had even looked around

All in all this room reminded me of every room my wife had given birth in, only a lot smaller. There was a bed with stirrups with a table covered with one of those paper medical thingies (sorry for the technical language) just in front of the end of the bed that held the stirrups.

The big mistake was looking to my left (the right side of the bed) where the ultrasound camera rested. I now knew exactly how they were going to find my prostate and, brother, this thing looked way thicker than it needed to be. Take all five fingers and pull them into a tight circle and then turn the circle towards you. That’s how thick it was.

“You can take off your pants and underwear and lay on this table and put your butt right here in this crack,” she slid her hand in the crack between the stirrups to demonstrate.

“So I can keep my socks?” I asked.

“Oh sure, you can keep those on. Then cover yourself with that big paper towel there and tell me when you’re ready.”

I did as instructed while nurse Jenny disappeared behind the curtain like the Wizard of Oz. But I thought back to the scrotal ultrasound and how they unceremoniously just ripped off the towel when I told them I was ready.

I told her I was ready and nurse Jenny unceremoniously ripped the towel right off as she walked in. What, the actual fuck? Why do we even bother?

She helped me place my legs in the stirrups and then shimmied me down a few inches towards the end of the bed. Then she sat on stool at the end of the bad and eyed my junk like a catcher waiting for an incoming pitch.

“So first I need to shave you.”

Shave me? Why the hell doesn’t someone give you at least the faintest idea of what you were in for during one of these procedures?

She didn’t pause but went right to work. I felt the scraping around my genitals and I just stared at the ceiling.

“I’m going to lift these now and shave down here. I’ll be shaving from here to your belly button,” by “these” she meant my balls and I felt them lifted and the scraping start on an area even I never see on my body.

“I bet you didn’t think you’d be getting a shave today, did you?” nurse Jenny said sweetly.

“Nope,” I admitted, “I had no idea.”

She kind of chuckled and went back to work, finishing by wiping everything so that I was clean as a daisy.

“I shave you so that after I add the tape, it doesn’t feel like a waxing when I have to take the tape off. Now I need to apply the iodine solution. Sorry but it will probably be a little cold.”

I really didn’t care about that at all. In fact the solution was cold and she was very thorough in her cleaning. What bothered me is as I felt the solution touch my anus, my asshole was suddenly on fire.

“Whoa, that burns a little,” I underplayed it.

“Yeah, sorry, that’s probably from where I shaved.”

Well, it wasn’t from where she shaved but I had no energy to argue with her now. A few minutes later she finished. After that, it was time to tape up the boys and attach them to my stomach.

When she was done, she said, “You’ll be glad I shaved you when we take that off. Now I’m going to come around and start the nitrous oxide for you.”

Now it concerned me that she said nitrous oxide. I thought I was getting something called “Pronax gas” that was stronger than nitrous oxide, but I guess I’d just take what I could get. She took a long plastic tube with two hoses coming out the other end and handed it to me.

“Put that between your teeth. Take deep, relaxed breaths. In a few minutes you’ll feel the nitrous start to take effect. Okay, I’ll go tell Dr. Sulek you’re ready.”

That was a matter of opinion, but she returned a few minutes later and asked what kind of music I liked. I told her classic rock would be good, but it wouldn’t mean anything. I don’t remember a single song that played except The Police, King of Pain. How fitting.

I focused on taking those deep, relaxing breaths. I thought the nitrous really didn’t taste very good but I closed my eyes and continued to breath. Dr. Sulek walked in a few minutes later shadowed by another guy who I had never seen before. He was young, thin, tall and had a clean-shaved face and head that made him look like a white pickle. His silver-rimmed glasses looked huge on his narrow face. I’m sure Dr. Sulek introduced him but, once again, I had different thoughts in my head and didn’t really give a shit about him, anyway. I really didn’t even like the fact that we were inviting even more people in. Was there anyone left in Nashville who had not seen my cock and balls by now?

 Dr. Sulek sat on the stool and Dr. Pickle stood to his left. Nurse Jenny stood next to Pickle and they all stared at my junk.

As far as I could tell, the nitrous had not done shit for me. I wasn’t even dizzy, so now I got scared.

“Um, am I getting more anesthetic than this because I don’t really feel anything,” I asked and then put the tube back between my teeth.

“Oh yeah, we’re going to get you fixed up here. The anesthetic is the first thing I’m going to give you. But before that I need to put the ultrasound in, so I’m going to lube you up.”

Now I felt the cold gel getting spread across my anus and suddenly inside my anus without even a warning. Next he took the ultrasound and crammed it in my cramhole like I was a prison bitch in American Me. It hurt and once it was completely lodged, it was extremely uncomfortable. But the pain was only starting.

“Okay, Mr. Reimert,” he pronounced correctly, “Just a little pinch here.”

The first shot was the anesthetic. Schnelle’s words “trust me, you won’t feel a thing” rang in my head.

The pinch was more like a knife stabbing into my taint. My whole body tensed and I growled.

“Try to stay still, Mr. Reimert,” Dr. Sulek said. Easy for him to say when he doesn’t have a donkey dick in his ass and what felt like a nail getting hammered into his taint.

I closed my eyes and tried to relax and focused on breathing. Surely if I just kept breathing nice consistent, long breaths the nitrous would do something.

Dr. Sulek removed the needle and that’s when I noticed out of the corner of my eye Dr. Pickle lean over to nurse Jenny and whisper something, to which they both giggled. Now I was getting mad. There is nothing more insulting for a man than to be naked from the waist down in front of other people only to have them whispering and giggling. I have no idea what they were giggling about, but I felt it was inappropriate at the least.

“Those are some good, deep breaths you’re taking, Mr. Reimert.”

“No shit,” I growled with the tube firmly clenched in my teeth.

“Ok, big stick here now, Mr. Reimert.”

BLAM! White hot pain shot through my pelvis and I growled as close to a scream as I have. Especially with a plastic tube clenched between my teeth. The stabbing pain coursed through from my taint all the way to my left hip. It was honestly agony.

Dr. Sulek conferred with Dr. Pickle as they stared at the ultrasound screen non-plussed about my suffering. They discussed the placement of the marker and, when they were satisfied, Dr. Sulek pulled the needle out. New rivulets of pain shot through my left testicle and down to my asshole. I growled again. I thought I had been making some pretty loud sounds, but no one else acted like I was even there.

“Ok Mr. Reimert,” Dr. Sulek finally acknowledged me, “Another big stick.”

No pause. A searing pain shot through my pelvis and continued through my testicles all the way up through the tip of my penis. It honestly felt like someone stabbed me with a sword. I screamed with my teeth clamped so tightly on the nitrous tube I thought I might bite through it. My hands tightened into fists and I involuntarily straightened my arms and my fists slid to my thighs. Subconsciously I leaned on my right ass cheek, probably from an instinct to escape the pain piercing through my left side, and my left leg stiffened and I brought it up out of the stirrup.

“Oh, Mr. Reimert, you need to keep your hands on your chest,” nurse Jenny said.

I pulled them slowly back up to my chest and released the tube from between my teeth.

“Fucking hell!” I said, “That…hurt.”

Even though I was staring at the ceiling I could see Dr. Sulek and Dr. Pickle in my peripheral vision give each other a look.

“Maybe we should give the anesthesia another minute,” Dr. Pickle suggested quietly to Dr. Sulek.

“Yeah, we’ll give this anesthesia another minute before we do the next one.”

I didn’t say a word. I was trying to catch my breath and stop my hands from shaking.

“I don’t know if it means anything but you’re doing really well,” nurse Jenny chimed it.

“Not a damn thing,” I snarled and placed the nitrous tube back in my mouth, although I really don’t know why I bothered.

Now dr. Sulek slowly rotated the ultrasound to get better images of the other side of my prostate and I released several farts. I wasn’t even embarrassed about it and I actually hoped I had made a mess to exact some kind of infantile revenge. Now I also knew that enemas don’t eliminate gas.

After what felt like the shortest minute in history, Dr. Sulek resumed his torture. Part of me wondered if he got mad because I snapped at his nurse, but I didn’t really give a shit if I hurt her feelings at that point. I was pissed. “I promise, you won’t feel a thing,” went to feeling EVERYTHING.

“Okay, one more big stick here, Mr. Reimert,” and now pain shot through my right side as he rammed the needle in like a Civil War soldier re-loading his musket. Although the pain was not as intense as the left side, it still nearly lifted my whole body off the table. Either due to the anesthetic kicking in a little more or the fact I think I was slipping into some kind of shock, it didn’t hurt quite as bad. It did hurt, however. I’m not trying to say I didn’t feel anything and my fists once again involuntarily slid down to my thighs as I growled profanities into the nitrous tube.

“Mr. Reimert, please keep your hands on your chest,” nurse Jenny chided.

I pulled them up again, but my left leg still remained hovering over the stirrup as it had since the second shot. I couldn’t seem to relax it quite yet. Dr. Sulek removed the ramrod from my pelvis and I growled again as the stabbing pain followed the needle. I relaxed back onto the bed as Dr. Sulek readied needle number 5.

Now nurse Jenny hurried around the bed to my side, I presume to stop my fists from moving off my chest. Dr. Sulek warned of one last stick and he poke it into my taint and I felt something spread deep inside my rectum. I grabbed my shirt this time as my body stiffened in reaction to the pain, but I was either too tired or in too much shock to growl or curse again.

As he slid the last needle out, he pulled the ultrasound out of my ass like he was trying to start a lawn mower. What the hell was his hurry? I felt the lubricant and God knows what else follow the ultrasound out of the orifice it had been lodged in and stream down my ass crack and onto the bed.

Good, I thought to myself, I hope it made a big mess.

I heard his voice again, “Well we’re all done here now, Mr. Reimert. Nurse Jenny will get you cleaned up and then your free to go.”

And that was it. Not another word out of the guy. No apologies for the level of pain. No post-operative instruction. Not even a fuck you.

Nurse Jenny did her part and I lay there still staring at the ceiling while she cleaned me off. When she finished, she covered me with the towel and told me I could sit up and offered me her hand. I took it and pulled myself up and immediately pulled the towel off myself. It had barely been there so far, why start now? I had gotten very hot, all of a sudden, and I like the cool air.

I sat there for a few minutes naked from the waist down while nurse Jenny stood in front of me staring at me. She finally walked off behind the current and I gathered my wits about me. I used the bit paper towel to wipe my ass off just in case Nurse Jenny had missed anything, then I stumbled to my feet and got dressed.

I took one more deep breath and turned around to grab my phone and glasses.

“Oh yeah, don’t forget your stuff,” Nurse Jenny was such a help.

I groggily stepped towards the door and nurse Jenny lead me outside.

“The exit is down there,” she pointed to a brown door at the end of the long hallway, “You did really good in there today.”

Fuck you, Jenny, I wanted to say but somehow restrained myself. I slowed down and half turned to her and growled, “Thanks” at the wall.

I emerged into the lobby and my wife jumped to her feet and grabbed my coat. I took it and wobbled a little, breathing deeply and running my fingers through my hair.

“Are you okay?” She asked, concern wrapping the words and her face.

“I just want to get out of here,” I told her, “I don’t care what they said, that hurt like hell,”

“So you could feel something?”

“I felt EVERYTHING,” I growled again, “I’ll tell you the rest in the car.”

I filled her in on every detail as we drove home. By the time we got there, she was as angry as me and wanted to drive over to Sulek’s office and give him a talking to. I told her that he usually called a day or two after the procedure, so I would express my misgivings then and she shouldn’t have to worry about it. We were both pissed off all night and I vented about it several times to her, my family and my closest friends.

That was two days ago. Not a word from Dr. Sulek or his office since. No calls or attempts to see how I was doing. Nothing. I even fired off an e-mail to him, which also has not yet received a reply. This whole thing has caused us to suddenly consider firing him and finding a new urologist. There better be some good conversations soon, because if not, that was exactly what was going to happen.

Tomorrow I would have my treatment simulation, so at that time I figured I would talk to my oncologist about it to get his opinion since he also did this procedure. I would ask him what pain level he expected when he did it and probably get to show him the two large, black bruises that had emerged below my scrotum from the injection sites. I figured he could tell me if those were normal, too. One way or the other, we would be getting some answers soon on how I went from being told I wouldn’t feel a thing to being in agony as I lay on that bed. Someone had a lot of ‘splainin’ to do.

The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is...

The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is…

**Warning! The following blog deals with my emotional state and inner thoughts and is not quite as light-hearted as my other ones have been. If that doesn’t interest you, I understand. But please consider yourselves warned**

So I have a bit of a lull between procedures, which is nice to not have to worry about some runaround for a few days. However, the lull also causes me to slip into my own thoughts, and that can be a dangerous thing.

First of all, I start to consider what my next procedure is and that is: injecting the gold marker balls into my prostate and applying the SpaceOAR gel around it to protect my rectal wall and bladder from radiation burns. That is one of the biggest reasons I chose this therapy. Not only does it have the lowest risk for secondary issues like ED and urinary problems, it also has a very similar success rate to the surgery itself. I mean, less pee pee and boner issues afterwards and still being able to cure me, I’m all in.

But the issue with this next procedure became that, since we changed locations, I would no longer be receiving a general anesthetic. I will endure this procedure with only Pronax gas. I honestly don’t recall having a procedure involving this gas before. But if it’s the same thing the dentist uses, then my anxiety will go through the roof because the one time I did get gas at the dentist, it honestly didn’t do a damn thing. So, my fear is that I will feel the needle as it slices through my taint to lodge the marker balls, followed by Lord only knows how many more injections to set the SpaceOAR gel. So I’ll spend the next few days with my thoughts full of fear.

Fear. One of many emotions that go through my head. As you can tell from my writings, I usually take a light-hearted approach to all that’s going on outside my head. But not always on the inside. I pretend to be brave even, though the fear of procedures and stress of constant phones calls and bills from insurance, doctors and facilities (sometimes 6 to 7 a day) can start to overwhelm me. I try to keep these things to myself because my family and friends have enough going on in their lives and they don’t need me whining about every step in the process. Everyone who has been praying for me and/or reading my blog have been paramount in keeping my emotions in check, and I appreciate everyone and everything and have no wish to burden you more.

My family and friendamily, especially my wife, have had the biggest burden to carry. They’re stuck being with me most of the time. They hear all of my stories and a lot of my complaints and fears (but not all of them). Like I said, I don’t want to overwhelm them, either. And seeing some family recently go through the arduous job of caring for a sick loved one, I really understand how big a burden that can be. No matter how much you love them, it’s still a lot for those around you to always be there for you emotionally, mentally and physically.

I recently exchanged texts with a good friend who is going through a cancer battle of her own. We discussed doctors and treatments and how we are both doing through it all. And one comment I made to her was that I don’t want to go through this and end up looking like a big baby to Vicki. Well I forgot I texted that and let Vicki read the texts so she could get the medical updates on our friend.

When she finished she just looked at me and said, “You know I always have your back. I don’t call you a big baby.”

And I told her that she misunderstood my sentiment. I told her that I didn’t think she called me a baby, at least I hoped not. What I said was that I couldn’t have her thinking I’m being some kind of big wimp as I go through this. After all, I’m a man and I have to act like a man. I don’t know if it’s just how my generation was raised or some kind of psychological trauma from getting bullied when I was young, but here we are.

Those years actually taught me how to control my emotions. When I was living through those hellish days of constantly getting picked on way back in my early teens, if I showed any emotion, especially tears, I would get it even worse. So, the only resolution I could think of to lessen the attacks was to stop. The other students, coaches, teachers and even other kid’s parents who all seemed to enjoy heaping verbal and sometimes physical abuse on me often had one thing in common- constantly reminding me that I was a pussy and I cried too much.

Why do you cry so much, Reimert? You cry all the time, like a little baby. You need to stop crying! You need to stop being like this and stop crying! STOP FUCKING CRYING!! And so, I did. When I hit about 16 years old, I had finally learned ways to better control my emotions, especially crying, and keep them hidden. It’s not that I didn’t have them, I was just able to hide them. And I refuse to cry, even to this day.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am not saying I NEVER cry. I just refuse to cry often (honestly about once every 7 to 10 years) and will do anything I need to do to rid myself of that emotion if I feel it sneaking into my heart. And NEVER cry in front of others. To do so would be emotionally traumatic to me (yes, I still get very angry at myself for crying, which heightens the emotion even more and I hate that too!) and so when I do cry, as infrequently as that is, I do it when no one else is around. I can’t let anyone think I’m a pussy. It’s just something I learned when having to endure those years.

Now, before you lecture me and tell me it’s ok for people to cry, I know it is. Please don’t comment to me after this that “it’s okay to cry.” I would never try to stop anyone else from releasing those emotions. I have zero disrespect at all when I see other people cry. In fact, I’m actually jealous. I’ve allowed my own, self-fabricated mental block to stop me from being able to engage in a simple human emotion, and I only have myself to blame. All this is being said solely to let you understand my own struggle with emotion. Even writing it out like this has been extremely hard for me. But it is how I got emotionally where I am today.

But I think that’s enough about that. It’s a swell summary of what affects my feelings on the things occurring in my world today and it also provides some unwanted insight for all of you into how my little brain works regarding emotion. Or maybe how it doesn’t work. Either way, there it is.

And emotions do become a big part of this, whether you want them to or not. Not just fear (fear of pain, fear of the unknown, fear of something getting worse, fear of going broke), but also anger, sorrow, depression, joy and relief. At some point prior to the MRI, I realized I was kind allowing all this to make me a real asshole to the one person who does always have my back: my wife. I hate to admit that, but I am happy I realized it and did something about it.

The only thing I remember saying to her about it at the time was, “Sorry I’ve been so angry lately. My cancer could be far worse, so I’m lucky I’ll be able to beat it. But I am sorry I’ve been a jerk, and I’ll try not to be so angry anymore.”

And I really meant that. But all she said to me was, “It’s ok to be angry about this sometimes. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

And you really do need to let the emotions out somehow. But it is wrong for me to take my anger out on the ones I love and who support me. So I had a little mental discussion with myself and I built another little mental wall. One to keep any anger isolated and, if released, to turn it into a self-reflection that says something more positive like…well, it could always be worse. And I’m glad it isn’t.

And on another note, it’s okay if I say that to myself. But now that I said it, I would also like to caution anyone reading this to never say that to someone who is going through a physical or emotional battle like this. Minimizing someone else’s struggle by comparing it to someone who has it worse doesn’t help one bit. I have had those words said to me and all it makes me want to do it punch them in the face. It makes the speaker seem uncaring, in my opinion. It feels like instead of focusing on my problem and wanting to help me with it, they flippantly make that remark as if I shouldn’t be concerned about my issue because, hey, other people have it worse!

Well, no shit. Okay, you’re right. Fuck my concern about cancer any way. There are people out there with far worse cancers than me who might not even live through it. So who was I to complain? Trust me, the realization that other people’s battle with cancer is far harder than mine is not lost on me. My heart goes out to those folks when I see them at one of my visits. Especially when it’s a child.

But where does this comparison end? There will ALWAYS be someone worse off in this life comparison. It would be a nearly endless. For example, you say “well, it could be worse, you could be broke.” And if you’re broke, “well, it could be worse, you could be homeless.” And then “Well, you’re homeless but it could be worse, you could be sick,” and blah, blah, blah until you get to the ultimate comparison that would be “well, it could be worse, you could be dead.” Because as far as the finality of life goes, that really is the ultimate comparison for who has it worse. Or maybe I’m just being selfish in regards to this. I don’t know. But it is how I feel, so I’m speaking my mind. Maybe it warrants a discission with your loved ones and my feelings on it are isolated and wrong. I may never know.

As far as seeing an adult or a child who look like they might be enduring chemotherapy or some other body-destroying therapy that has ravaged them in an attempt to kill their cancer, it breaks my heart every time. And I see them in the lobbies of the hospitals and cancer centers every time I go. I even wish I could sometimes trade places with the kids. I turned 58 today and I’ve had a good life. Let me swap cancers so this child can have one too. But it doesn’t work that way. All I can do is pray for these other adults and children and all their loved ones. And this frustration at lacking any greater ability to help leads to even more sorrow and even guilt for me. I wish I could do so much more to help people. Cancer sucks.

But in the meanwhile, I have turned my anger around to be more caring and supportive of my wife. She has made a lot of sacrifices for me so far and is always a willing chauffeur and sometimes my nurse (although she would not help me with my enema. Hmm). And I knew I needed to make sure she feels how grateful I am for that. I hope I can continue to do that. I don’t want to get on the other side of this and look back at it and think…’man, I was jerk!’

Which brings me to my final “fear” for today, so rejoice as today’s blog is nearing its end for those of you who stuck with it. And that fear is, having seen folks go through far worse battles with cancer than me and find the resolve to somehow kick its ass and knowing mine was easier, should I “ring the bell?”

If you know anyone who has beaten cancer or even just seen a video or news article about it, almost every cancer center in the U.S. has a bell. The patient, and sometimes the family, gets to ring the bell on the occasion of receiving their last treatment and, hopefully, beating cancer. The proton center also has a bell. Do I really deserve to ring it?

I had an amazing friend named Shellie. She had a sudden onset of a crazy-aggressive cancer that, in three months, went from not being there to being everywhere. They tried chemotherapy and even a surgery, but that was when they saw the cancer everywhere and knew there wasn’t anything that could be done any more. We spent as much time as we could with her over the next 9 months. We did what we could to bring her some joy and love in the time she had left.

As so many of us know, having had to sit and watch someone die from cancer, it was incredibly hard to do. We prayed and consoled and loved as much as we could right up to the end. I saw her fight. I saw her make every effort to live as long as she could. She did it for her kids and her boyfriend, Paul (another of my best friends), but her cancer was just too much. And 9 months later she passed away. But I will always respect her fight and her will to live as long as she could.

Mine is nothing like hers. Or anyone else who has it worse than me, for that matter. So seeing these kids and adults as much as I do now who have so much tougher cancer fights than me, it makes me question myself- do I really deserve to ring a bell?

And my eventual answer is…yes. Of course I do. No matter what your battle with cancer is, once you kick its ass, you deserve to ring the bell. And not just for yourself. You ring the bell for your family and friends. For those who are there for you, who pray for you or even who just read your silly blog. You ring the shit out of that bell because beating cancer is beating cancer.

I have a tumor in me. One that could kill me if it spreads. So I’m going to knock it right out of me and then I’m going to ring that damn bell. I’m going to ring the shit out of it like a lunatic on the back of a firetruck. Well, maybe not that hard, but ring it I shall. And, if for no other reason, to at least signify that this part of the journey is over. And let everyone I know, and love, hear it.

That pretty much wraps up my fears and where I stand emotionally, and even how I developed emotionally. It was probably the most difficult blog I’ve written yet because I’ve actually admitted things here that I have never admitted to anyone, except maybe my wife. Since this wasn’t like some of my past blogs, for that I do apologize, although I did warn you. But I felt like I had to put it out there. I don’t know why. And it really has made me feel better, even if no one ever reads it.

Next up is the trip to the treatment center for placement of the marker balls and SpaceOAR gel. I’m sure that will provide a bit more interesting reading and some laughs, and some more fears, along the way. I hope you’ll join me. Until then, God bless you all!

Well...Nuts

Well…Nuts

Tuesday, January 28th was a shit day. It started off with the oncologists office calling around 9 a.m. I figured, as far as the MRI and PET Scan went, no new was good news. So the fact that they were calling me meant it wasn’t good news.

“Hello, may I speak to Mr. Ree-mart?” My last name really isn’t that hard to pronounce, was it? Apparently, it was.

I ignored it. “Yes, this is him.”

The voice on the other end told me she had my MRI results and that it showed the tumor in my prostate did not appear to go beyond the walls of the prostate, and that my lymph nodes appeared to be clean. So for a few seconds it appeared to be good news after all.

“But…” of course…a ‘but’, ”They did see something in your scrotum. So I need to set up a scrotal MRI so they can take a better look.

I didn’t say much at first. Several fears had snatched my voice and I didn’t know which question to ask first.

“Hello? Mr. Ree-mart?”

“Yeah,” I sighed trying to verbalize what was in my mind, “I’m here. So, when you say you found ‘something’, what does that mean?”

She explained that they had found a “fluid sack” in my scrotum that probably wasn’t cancer or anything but it still needed more review to identify exactly what it was because if it needed something done medically, it would have to be done before treatment could begin.

“Ok, and what exactly happens in a scrotal ultrasound?” I didn’t even like saying the words.

She paused and seemed to be taken aback by the question.

“Well, are you familiar with an ultrasound?”

“Yes,” I replied a bit annoyed at being condescended to.

“Well they need to perform an ultrasound to get better images of what is in your scrotum.”

I don’t honestly know what I expected her to say. I mean, scrotal ultrasound was pretty descriptive to start with. At this point I was just stalling.

So they needed better images of my nuts. Terrific. I feel like I had swung my junk in front of so many people’s faces in the past few months I could be an honorary member of the Chippendales. Could this get any more embarrassing? I would regret this question later.

Before she hung up I had it scheduled for Friday afternoon and I went back to my workday. Until the phone rang again. This time it was a different number from my urologist’s office.

“Hello, may I speak to Mr. Ree-mert?”

God, give me strength. “Yes, this is Mr. Rye-mert,” I corrected.

She introduced herself and I didn’t pay attention but she went on to say the appointment I needed to have for the placer balls and SpaceoOAR gel put around my prostate had been canceled because the surgery center no longer took my insurance.

“Wait, the place that did my biopsy the last three times doesn’t take Cigna insurance?”

“No, they no longer take that plan.”

Well shit. “Okay, so now what?”

She explained the doctor would be informed of the situation and he would look into finding another facility to perform the procedure.

Well now my heart sank into my stomach. I stared at my desk a few minutes because the last two hours or so had not been great. I stepped away and put the dogs out to get some fresh air. I tried to tell myself that everything would be fine and they would find somewhere else to get it done.

Both of these issus caused several complications. The first was that my doctor intended to use a general anesthetic to get the procedure done, which I preferred. I mean, if they are going to put needles in your taint multiple times, who wouldn’t want to be asleep? I knew my oncologist could do it and was a nationally certified doctor for this procedure, so I would still be in good hands. But he only used a local anesthetic. Not a general.

The second was that if the ultrasound found anything, it had to be taken care of prior to being able to start treatment. So, both of these issues could also cause a delay to the outset of treatment beginning.

I would agonize over these things the next few days, bouncing back and forth between concerns over who would be the next medical professional handling my junk, and when were they going to call me back about having found a place to do the procedure. It was a delightful couple days inside my head.

I don’t know if anyone else gets a mental tug of war when it comes to a medical procedure performed on your privates, but I do. A string of questions started forming. Was it going to be a man or a woman? Would they be rough or gentle? Would my nuts need to get squashed like a woman’s breasts in a mammogram? I suddenly had the mental image of someone pressing the ultrasound down on my nut, squashing it like they were trying to press grapes into wine.

And did it matter if it was a man or a woman? Which would be better? I think for most heterosexual men, at least the ones I talk to, we prefer a woman in situations like this. Not because we expect anything sexual (I knew this didn’t include a happy ending…probably) but in my experience, it’s still more relaxing to have a woman do it. I’m just being honest here.

My wife actually looked at me after I told her and said, “It’s probably going to be a pretty girl. You know almost all of the people who do this are women.”

Well, man or woman, pretty or ugly, it was going to be what it was going to be. And that was…expensive.

So now, in a span of 8 days, I was going to have an MRI, a PET Scan and an ultrasound. And in a couple weeks, I’d be having my first CT Scan in order to give me the tattoos that would help aim the pencil beam. So I was pretty much going to hit the full gamut of bodily imaging scans. And during my biopsies I’m pretty sure they put an ultrasound up my ass to guide the doctor as he jackhammers a needle through my taint into my prostate.

Oh my God! Would they need to do that for the placer balls and SpaceOAR gel, which I would now be awake for? Jesus, take the wheel. I couldn’t even think about that right now. Let’s get back to our regularly scheduled panicked thoughts.

So the blessed day arrived, and beautiful and warm sunny day in Tennessee (I love my home state and mild winters). I drove to Premier Radiology in Mount Juliet and found the office easily, even with my head still full of “what if” thoughts.

I stepped up to the desk and a middle-aged woman with dyed red hair eyed me over the frame of her glasses.

“Do you have an appointment?” she asked gruffly.

“Uh, yeah I,,,”

“Name?” she asked even more angrily.

I gave her my name, rank and serial number and waited figuring she would shout out “OH.ARE YOU HERE FOR A SCROTAL ULTRASOUND!!”

Buy she didn’t. Once she got my insurance settled and my information pulled up, she finally took on a softer tone.

“You’re having an ultrasound today?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I decided to be respectful rather than risk the wrath of Nurse Gruffity-gruff.

“And how will we be paying for this today,” Eyes lifting of the frame of her glasses again.

Payment? Nobody said I had to pay today. Aren’t these the kind of things they should tell you ahead of time? And what’s this “we” shit?

“The total is going to be $312.”

Good grief. Well, compared to a PET Scan, that was a bargain.

“I’ll just use my HSA card,” I told her and handed her the card.

Once I signed multiple things and finished up with nurse Gruffity-Gruff, I found a seat in the corner. I was very nervous now, even though I tried not to show it, and hid myself away in the corner. Now, who would be coming out to claim the rights for a personal view of my scrotum?

After a few minutes, I heard my name called. I looked up from my phone and it was a pretty, young blond who greeted me with a pleasant smile. She looked so young I thought she might still be in High school. I figured this was just the girl who would take me back to the room and another person would be there ready to do the ultrasound.

“Mr. Ree-mart?”

Good night Irene. I just smiled back at her and said, “That’s me.”

She replied, “I’m Kelly, the ultrasound trainee.”

Well fuck my life. I knew I shouldn’t have asked if this could get more embarrassing because I knew right then, it did. If she was the trainee, then that meant…

“Hello, I’m Kathy, the ultrasound Tech,” a middle-aged woman in dark blue scrubs informed me, “And Kelly here is the trainee and she’ll be joining us here today.

Great. A fucking audience. Maybe I could have sold tickets or just started a Tiktok live. I mean, what other ways of embarrassing me could they create? Required plaster casts of my junk? Group anal fissure investigation? How about a public semen sample?

“Kelly and I will step out into the hall. Just pull your pants and underwear down to your knees, lay on the table and dover yourself with this blanket. Don’t worry, I’ll knock before we come in.”

Okay, sure. I followed the orders and exposed my genital region. I lay down on the table that was terribly uncomfortable even though it was cushioned, and I covered myself as instructed.

A knock at the door and it opened slightly.

“Mr. Rye-mert, are you ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I told them and lay back and stared at the ceiling.

If felt like they were no sooner in the room when Kathy ripped the blanket off of me like a magician pulling the tablecloth from under a set table, ignominiously exposing my jolly rogers to the world. I continued to stare at the ceiling not wanting to even know if young trainee Kelly was looking at me yet. I was already uncomfortable with my body as it was, I didn’t want to read her eyes as anything judgmental.  Why the fuck had they even bothered to cover me with a blanket? I might as well have just laid there half naked to begin with.

Kathy grabbed some kind of large, rectangular paper and laid it so only my balls were now exposed. How comforting.

“So we’ll be doing both sides today. I’m going to cover the ultrasound with a gel and you’ll feel me sliding it slowly over the area. We need to get multiple images from different angles, but it won’t take very long. Just try to lay back and be comfortable.”

Right. With my nuts hanging out in the wind while not one but TWO women analyze my ball sack. Sure. Why not just offer me a snack and a drink while I lay here?

I stared at the ceiling like it was my job to count the perforations in the ceiling tiles. I felt her hand and then the imaging device sliding slowly around my testicle from all angles and stopping in certain areas to get some pictures that were saved on the computer screen they were both stared at.

I received a few instructions as they snapped pictures on the computer like holding my breath (what did that have to do with my nut sack?) and asking me to tighten up like was doing a sit-up. I could just hear my body laughing now. Sit-up? All this guy ever does is sit. Well, shut-up, body. I knew what I was doing. And I did tighten my flabs as much as I could, but I still wonder if they noticed.

lAfter about 15 minutes and multiple applications of whatever the gel was, Kathy took the equipment off and stood up.

“Is it ok if Kelly does the other side? She’s a trainee and she needs the experience.”

“Sure,” I shrugged, “Why not?”

Why not invite some people in from the lobby to help? I could have possibly sold tickets. Lord knows I could use the money. Perhaps I’d start using these opportunities to create an OnlyFans.

Kelly looked slightly uncomfortable as she took the seat and I didn’t blame her one bit. I had to wonder if this was a situation she had been told could even happen, or if, right now, she was just totally re-thinking her life.

Now her hand slid the gel-slathered device over “the other side” and they both stared at the screen. Occasionally Kathy would provide Kelly with some mumbled help or instructions and Kelly would occasionally ask a question. At one point she went far higher on my scrotum then Kathy had and I hope I hid my surprise. Shortly after that she held the device on my left testicle and asked Kathy how she should get a certain image. Kathy tried to instruct her verbally, but that didn’t help.

“No,” she told Kelly, “Here, let me help you.”

And Kathy leaned over the table and put her hand on my junk, too. Now I suddenly has two women sliding their hands over my scrotum at the same time, Wow, my first threesome and it was nothing like I had ever hoped or dreamed.

I closed my eyes and reminded myself to breath and that it would soon all be over. And thankfully it was. Kelly took the device and started to clean it with a paper towel.

“Okay, Mr. Ree-mert, we’re all done. We’ll step outside and let you clean up. Just come on out whenever you’re done. There’s an extra towel there if you need it.”

“Thanks,” I murmured as I started to rise. And now I felt the gel on me, and it was everywhere like i just left a Diddy party. It was so slopped across my midsection and even my legs that I couldn’t believe it. How had this stuff made such a mess. It was all the way down to my calves and areas they hadn’t even touched. Good lord, what a mess.

Well after what the two ladies probably thought was a long time, I decided I was clean enough and tried to courteously set the two towels on a large bin labeled “Dirty Linens” and I headed out the door.

On my way out Kathy informed me a radiologist would need to look at the images so I wouldn’t hear anything for several days. I felt some urgency for getting it done so I could finally get some treatment start days set up, I hoped it wasn’t going to be too long before we heard something back..

After sitting in my van for a few minutes trying to gather my thoughts, I headed to my friend Paul’s house to drop something off for him. As soon as I pulled in the driveway, my phone rang and it was the scheduler for my urologist’s office. Great, now what?

“Hello Mr. Ree-Mert, it’s Chanelle with Dr. Sulek’s office. I was calling you about your SpaceOAR appointment.”

“Yeah, they called me last week and told me that was canceled,” I told her.

She paused a second and kind of barked, “Well, it’s not. They never should have said that to you. They should have asked me.”

Well why are you angry at me? I thought but kept it to myself, “Ok, so what does that mean?”

Her voice softened, “Well, we are still on for the 18th at the same building, you’ll just be going to the other side. The treatment side.”

Okay, well that was good. It seemed that one thing was going my way today.

“But…”

Oh my God, not again.

“You won’t be receiving a general anesthetic on that side any more. We can only give you a strong gas. You don’t have C.O.P.D. do you?”

I had to get over my initial shock. The whole reason I wanted to have Dr. Sulek do it is because I would be completely knocked out. Now she was telling me that while they were inject gold placer balls into my prostate and SpaceOAR gel around it, I would be awake for the whole thing!

“Well,” I stammered, “No, I don’t but what kind of anesthetic is it?”

I’ll be honest, I didn’t hear the exact name of the gas but it wasn’t nitrous oxide. She said it was something stronger.

“And trust me, I promise you won’t feel a thing.”

I had heard those words before and they were almost always lies.

“Really? I hope not.”

“You won’t. I promise.”

I shook my head angrly and surrendered, “Well, I don’t have a choice, so I guess I’ll see you on the 18th.”

“Ok, thank you Mr. Ree-mert. I’ll call you early next week with more instructions on what’s going to happen that day.”

“Okay,” was all I could muster and I hung up. I dropped the item off at Paul’s house and started the drive home. But now I felt violated from the procedure and angry at knowing that now I would be wide awake for the procedure with Dr. Sulek and I really felt like I needed a drink. I cut through my home city and drove to Jonathan’s Bar and Grille, one of my favorite watering holes. I figured a few beers and gathering my thoughts and emotions on what had been a really weird day was truly in order. Plus in exactly one week I would be turning 58. So as we stormed towards treatment I quite literally wasn’t getting any younger.

What a day and what a week it had been. This adventure sure presented new obstacles every week, but that couldn’t continue, could it? I’ll probably regret asking that questions, too.

Well, another hurdle crossed and several more to go. Slow and steady wins the race.

Know Your Enema

Know Your Enema

So my consultation was on Wednesday, January 8th, 2025 and they immediately sent off for the pre-authorizations I would need for proton pencil-beam therapy. This included a PET Scan and an MRI, both of which still needed to be scheduled. Of course none of it mattered if my insurance didn’t approve it.

On Monday, January 13th, when I logged into work, I had an e-mail saying a decision had been made on my prior authorization and I could go view it on the interwebs. But part of me really didn’t want to because, although I was hopeful it would get approved, I had about a 70% surety in my soul that either the proton therapy wouldn’t be approved OR they would only approve 5 treatments and then I couldn’t do it any way.

But after a few dep breaths, I opened the message and to my surprise, everything had been automatically approved. My heart jumped into my throat and felt like my favorite team had just scored the winning touchdown in in the playoff game (which, in fact, my favorite team, Notre Dame, had done just that the previous week, so maybe I had some leftover excitement from that blessed event).

But…and there is always a but…the approval only mentioned five visits. Fuck my life. My excitement disappeared and fell into my shoes as I scanned and re-scanned it to make sure I hadn’t missed it. But no, this list only included 5 treatments. But that was five CT Visits. It didn’t say proton therapy visit. Confusion ushered in a headache and I sat back in my chair.

But (yes, another “but!”) wait! An approval letter was attached to the bottom of the form. I opened it, scanning through the words like a kid at Christmas, breathlessly reading hoping at the end was my Red Ryder bb gun.

The letter wasn’t that long and the last paragraph was what I was looking for.

“Proton Beam Therapy is considered an experimental therapy,” my heart sank as I read, “And your doctor has requested 28 treatments of proton beam therapy for your prostate cancer. It is the decision of Evernorth Healthcare that…”

My stomach turned and my blood throbbed in my temples, “we do approve all 28 treatments…”

There were more words, but I didn’t read them. “Approved all 28” was all I needed to see. Praise the Lord, and Hallelujah. I felt like I was truly blessed with a miracle.

I had immediately contacted my wife as I read through everything from my excitement about it all being approved to my dread of it looking like only five treatments to my euphoria over it actually being all 28 treatments. She shared in all my emotions and we both breathed a sigh of relief. This moment felt like…victory.

The next day I got a call about the MRI and PET Scan appointments and that they wanted me to have them both on the same day. I thought that might be asking a bit much, but then I realized that having the Xanax and getting them both out of the way at almost the same time really did sound like a good idea.

“So does Thursday the 23rd sound like it would work for you to have the MRI at 9:45 and the PET Scan at 11:30?” the scheduler asked.

“Sure,” I answered. I mean what choice did I have? “As long as it all gets approved.”

I still didn’t have approvals for the MRI or the PET Scan and I wasn’t paying it out of my pocket.

“Great,” she said, “I get you listed on the schedule. And don’t worry, if we have some kind of hiccup with approvals, we’ll cancel these appointments.”

Part of me hoped they would and that way I could avoid having to undergo the torture of these scans. I already felt anxiety welling up at the thought of my hefty body being buried completely in these machines.

“Oh, and we’ll be sending your Xanax prescription to your pharmacy,” (yes!), “And you’ll need a driver. Oh, and as prep for the MRI you’ll need to do an enema that morning.” (No!)

“Um…a what?” I asked.

“You’ll need to clear your colon so you have to do a fleet enema in the morning about 30 minutes before you come.”

“Well,” I told her, “I’m an hour away, so it’s going to be more than 30 minutes prior that I’ll be doing the enema.”

I sure as hell wasn’t doing it in the car.

“Oh, yeah ok,” she said, “That makes sense. We’ll let you know if there are any issues with the approvals. “

“Sounds good,” replied and ended the call.

But I sat staring for a few minutes. An enema? Seriously? I’m 57 years old and not once in my life had I ever had to do an enema. What new hell would this be?

Not too surprisingly my approvals for both scans came in the next few days so the next step was buying a Fleet enema. The scheduler told me they should be easy to find in any pharmacy, so off to Kroger I went. I had a few other things I needed, anyway.

I strolled through the pharmacy of Kroger scanning the laxative shelves for a Fleet Enema. I had no idea where to look, but this seemed like a good starting point. Finally after looking across every shelf from top to bottom, I saw them on the bottom shelf, but a guy stood in front of them. Now normally I wouldn’t mind saying “escuse me, buddy,” and grabbing what I needed, but I didn’t really want to draw attention to myself reaching for an enema, so I  waited.

Well the dude was reading through a Pepto-Bismol bottle like his life depended on it. Just standing there staring at the back of the bottle. Look, pal, this isn’t the fucking articles of confederation, for crying out loud. It’s Pepto-Bismol. I finally had enough and did excuse myself and snatched the box with the fleet enema and just tossed it into my cart like I had nary a care.

Then I grabbed the other couple items I wanted and made my way to the checkout. I laid the enema, the KY lube (the enema tip was lubed but my asshole wasn’t so better safe than sorry), 3 bacon-wrapped filets and a case of beer on the conveyor belt. As the items inched towards the check-out girl, I suddenly realized how bad this might look to her and what thoughts she might be having as she rang them up. Like, “What kind of party are they having? And how many of these things are going up his ass?”

Well, none of her business. I just smiled, paid for them all and headed out. Mission accomplished.

Now Thursday came way too fast but at least I could finally stop worrying about it all. The day was here and I had to get it done. In fact, I had spent a lot of the week mentally preparing for the day. If, at any time during the week, I got anxious thinking about the twenty pound bag-of-shit that I was getting stuffed into a ten pound hole, I closed my eyes and did some deep breaths until the moment passed and I could move on with my day. And I kept psyching myself up all week that I had to get this done. I was going to get this done!

Now I stood naked in the bathroom, towel spread across the floor reading the instructions on an enema. How was I going to get this done? One thing I did know is not to take the Xanax first. It would probably have created a huge mess, but at least I wouldn’t have cared.  

The enema itself looked like a small plastic water bottle with a 3” long orange tip attached to the top. The instructions were very helpful (dripping with sarcasm) and stated things like “insert lubricated tip in the direction of your navel.” Well, what other direction was I going to insert it? If I somehow could have inserted the bottom of the bottle in my ass, I only would have wound up with wet feet.

Casting the box aside and deciding I already had the right amount of training, I lay on my side and got down to business. What I had read earlier in the week on the internet is that the fluid from the enema should stay inside for anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes. Thankfully I did read enough of the instructions to see they said the time was 1-5 minutes.

I don’t know whose superhuman anus could stay closed for up to 15 minutes, but 3 was more than enough for me. I’ll spare you the details of the results other than to say imagine a really dirty Niagara Falls and there you have it.

So I showered and my chauffeur wife loaded the Xanax, the binder and the blindfold I packed for the MRI, and off we went. Traffic was far easier than either of us figured. We though Nashville traffic at 8:45 would be a cluster-foxtrot and take us at least an hour for the drive. But there was no traffic so I didn’t even need to take the Xanax until I got to the parking lot of the imaging building.

My wife was downright shocked at my easy-going nature. Up to this point she thought I would be despondent and angry, swearing and stomping my feet all the way and snapping at her every other sentence. In fact, she was so shocked by my affable attitude that she turned to me half way there and asked, “Why are you being so nice?”

All I could say was I had been practicing breathing exercises and this stuff had to get done if I was going to beat cancer, so my whole attitude had to change. Especially towards my wife who was my biggest supporter. I told her I was focused on not being so much of a dick.

By the time they called me in for the MRI, the Xanax had started to kick in. Now it wasn’t overwhelming like my wife and I though to where I might need a wheelchair to get anywhere. It really just make me sleepy and took the edge off. Like a couple of stiff drinks.

I got into the room and they put an IV needle in and I remember they put some large headphones on my ears and the nurse shouted some instructions that I could barely hear due to the headphones. I laid on the gurney bed and told them I was claustrophobic. They said they knew and immediately put a washcloth over my eyes. As I felt the bed getting pulled into the machine, I continued to remind myself that no matter what, I could NOT remove the washcloth.

I actually think it helped that I tried to do an MRI before, even though I failed. I already knew what the machine looked like and how small the entrance was, so it didn’t shock me. And the Xanax not only helped me forget some details of the MRI but I even nodded off a time or two, even with the loud banging that went on inside the machine.

Next this I knew a nurse was yelling “Okay, you’re coming out now” and a wave of relief washed over me. I did it. The nurse even said I was in the machine for 45 minutes. Well, thank you Xanax. My new best friend.

The nurses in the MRI building asked me if I had a PET Scan next and I tole them I did so they left the IV in my arm.

“It’ll save you from having to get stuck again. But don’t tell the people up front or we’ll get in trouble.”

Well unless they read my blog, your secret is safe with me. Now my wife shipped me across the street to the PET Scan building. Once again I was greeted by a nurse and taken back almost immediately. This time I kept my clothes on but I needed a radioactive fluid injected that took an hour to spread through my whole body. The nurse laid me back on what looked like a glorified camp chair that reclined. I told her I still had the IV needle in my arm and she replied that they had already called and told me I would. I thought that was supposed to be a secret?

At any rate, the nurse put a hypodermic into it and said, “this might burn a little,” and a little my ass. It burned like hell as she put it in, but only at the entry point. After that she offered me a pillow, which I accepted, and told me she’d be back in an hour.

I certainly still had the affects of the Xanax, although they had lessened, but I lay there and wondered what exactly I would do to pass the time because even though I closed my eyes, I didn’t think I’d fall asleep.

What seemed like seconds later, the nurse knocked at the door and said “okay, it’s time to go.” I had passed out almost immediately for one of the best hour-long naps I could remember. One of those naps that made my legs wobble as I tried to walk to the machine room. Well, the nap and the Xanax.

The PET Scan machine was about half the size of the MRI and had a four-foot-long tunnel in the middle that moved back and forth. I received no washcloth this time as the nurse helped me lay in the machine. But that seemed ok because my whole body would never be in the machine at the same time, and I still had Xanax coursing through my veins.

The nurse told me I had to have three scans of my whole body so to lay still or it would prolong the procedure, which she said would last about forty minutes, I resigned myself to once again “get’er done” and laid as still as I could and, in fact, dozed off another tie of two. Without any issues, the nurse declared we were finished and I would go.

The Xanax now felt like it was nearly gone and I felt a great pride at the day. I had conquered and enema, an MRI and a PET Scan all in the same day and still had time for lunch and quick stop at Total Wines. That was more of a reward for my amazing wife who stayed with me every step of the way.

But overall, it had been such a successful day and I glowed with success about it all. Let her buy whatever wine she wanted. Lord knows she deserves it and needs it putting up with me. But one more hurdle crossed and now all we could do was wait for the results. Everything from here on depended on those. And it wouldn’t all be good news.

Options

Options

So after taking a day to process the news that my prostate cancer would now require treatment, I read over the notes my wife took and began to look into the treatments. The initial shock of being told I needed treatment apparently made me go deaf for a few minutes. Of course, my wife thinks I’m deaf at least half the time, but now isn’t the time for that argument.

For whatever reason I only heard two treatments get discussed by Dr. Sulek- surgery and the seeds. I was a little frustrated with it seeming like I only had two options, so on Christmas Eve I decided to fire off a message to his office that I didn’t like either of the options we initially discussed and is he sure there were any more?

Now I do recall him discussing HIFU (High Intensity Focused Ultrasound) because that was one non-invasive treatment I was really excited about, But the reason I remember him talking about it is because he said due to my cancer have spread into more cores, I wasn’t really a candidate for that treatment because it wasn’t focused enough. Well, great. Thanks for nothing.

So I sent the e-mail and promptly got caught up in Christmas festivities and tried to leave my prostate concerns behind. I had also decided not to tell the kids yet or my family. Telling them would only have them more worried about me over Christmas then they needed to be. No reason to a take away from the joy of the season.

And in fact we did make quite Merry over the next few days and I kept all the treatment discussion to myself. All three kids, even my oldest, came to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and by golly, I decided to live it up. Why not? The “you only live once” saying suddenly became even more apropos.

A week later, on New Year’s Eve we had a party at the house because it also happens to be my wife’s birthday. Earlier that day my youngest, who was home from college, asked me about my last biopsy, so I told him that I had gotten to a point where treatment would be needed. I think it scared him and he kind of stared down at the table and asked what that meant. I told him as much as I could but also told him that it wouldn’t kill me. I would just be inconvenient for a little while.

Having told him, I decided to tell my daughter, too. She had a similar reaction but was obviously glad to know it wouldn’t kill me. A little while later my wife told my oldest son when they were outside getting some cool air. He did not take the news as well and when she mentioned she needed to get something from the shed, he offered to get it because he said he also needed a few minutes alone. She told me all this later and I felt bad and could only think that this was why I really didn’t want to tell anyone, even though I knew they all needed to know. But she said it scared him and “I just don’t think he wants to lose his dad.”

Other than that, we enjoyed the holiday so much that I honestly forgot I even sent the e-mail off to Dr. Sulek. I only remembered after New Years so I hurried to the computer to see if he had responded. In fact he had responded almost immediately and told me that we had discussed more than 2 (we had?) and in fact, right now, I had 6 good options to consider:

1)      Robotic Arm Surgery – honestly this is the one treatment that will insure that the cancer never comes. But to me it also insured never using my dick again, having to re-learn how to hold my pee and a painful recovery. I mean, who wouldn’t be excited by that option? Oh and since they remove the prostate, they had to re-attach your urinary tract to your bladder and you lose an inch of length from your penis. I couldn’t afford to lose an inch of length. It would look like someone superglued a little pink nazi helmet to my abdomen. Well, heil no. That just wouldn’t fly.

2)      External Beam Radiation – This was a wider beam of radiation that works as treatment for the prostate, but also leads to additional secondary issues. These are delivered in anywhere between 5 and 40 sessions. Since it is less focused, it can burn the bladder and rectal wall and has a higher chance of creating a secondary cancer. Not surgery but irradiating a larger area wasn’t very appealing either.

3)      Pencil Beam Proton Radiation Therapy – This was a focused beam of radiation that would hit only the prostate and, more importantly, it would be directly focused on the tumor and would not hit anything else. Gold placer balls would be inserted into the prostate to help aim the beam and SpaceOAR gel would be injected between the prostate and the rectal wall. This gave an added layer of protection from burning the rectal wall where most of the sex organ nerves reside. That made the risk of erectile disfunction much lower as well as eliminating many other painful side effects from surgery. These are also delivered anywhere between 5 and 40 sessions.

4)      Brachytherapy – this is the “Seeds” I had heard and read about before. Radioactive seeds are implanted directly into the prostate. One benefit for this is there is only one treatment required. Disadvantages are higher rate of cancer recurrence risk compared to surgery or radiation and rare but severe complications. With a lower cure rate and higher chance of complications, I’ll pass on this one as well.

5)      Cryoablation – freezing the prostate in order to kill the tumor. This process has far lower cure rates. Because who doesn’t want their prostate turned into a popsicle? Once again, lower cure rate and potential of repeat therapy gave this one a thumbs down.

6)      Do nothing. Obviously the easiest and also the most deadly. He stated he did not, as my doctor, recommend this option. Even with the slow growth of prostate cancer my life expectancy would be 10-15 years. No one lives forever, but I’d like to think at only 57 I can live longer than 10-15 years, so I will definitely be doing something.

I did dive in and research all of these options, although I admittedly spent more time on some than I did others because some of them were easier to discount. I pretty much landed on either of the radiation therapies. My preference was the pencil beam, but if external beam ended up being the only radiation option, then I’d go with that.

So I communicated back to dr. Sulek that my preference was the pencil beam therapy. It had the highest cure rate next to surgery and the lowest risk of side effects. I think he still tried to push surgery a little, but he either realized my closed mindset or did believe that pencil beam was a good choice for me. So he set me up for a consultation with Dr. Chase Escott with Tennessee Oncology Associates.

Our consultation with Tennessee Oncology Associates got scheduled quickly and my wife once again accompanied me. She had already created a binder of insurance information, notes she had compiled and a list of questions she had for Dr. Escott. If you haven’t realized it by now, my wife is very organized and focused. I can be organized when it comes to leading something, but this medical mumbo jumbo was often too high-brow for me. So my wife had to be the brains of the operation.

When they set the meeting up, they gave us a two hour window to make sure we had enough time to answer all our questions. That seemed like more than enough time to me. In fact, I figured we’d be in and out of there in an hour, hour and a half tops and getting some lunch. I did not account for my being an idiot.

The oncology office itself looked new. It was clean and state-of-the-art. Two ladies at the front desk greeted us nicely enough. I gave my name, rank and serial number and they made sure that they had everything they needed for medical and insurance purposes.

Once everything was ticked and tied, we were told to have a seat in their large waiting area. The lobby itself was one long room with some tables, chairs and sofas for me to park my dardy carcass, but almost all of them already had butts in them. We found a table in the “snack area” (yes, free cookies, chips and an assortment of drinks) and I put my coat on the chair. But the coffee I had before we left pressed the need to be recycled, so I told my wife I’d be right back.

Now one thing my urologist did tell us prior to coming is that when the therapies start, I would always have to have a full bladder, but not today. I did notice a big sign on the bathroom door that read, “STOP! If you are having therapy today, you may require a full bladder. DO NOT empty your bladder if you have a scheduled therapy today.” Or words to that effect. They were very serious about their full bladders.

It wasn’t long before a nurse came to our table and ushered us back to a small meeting room. They offered us more drinks and said another nurse would be with us shortly, which she was. Now the questioning began. She started into a series of health questions that got increasingly more private and potentially embarrassing. Of course they had the “do you smoke? How many drinks a week? Recreational drugs?” questions that I am used to.

But this interrogation went further than usual. She asked questions about my sex drive, my ability to get an erection and my ability to maintain an erection. Like, are you hard enough to penetrate and when you have sex, can you stay hard to completion? I felt like I might squirm right under the table into the fetal position.

“Just curious,” my wife interjected, “But what is the purpose of those questions?”

“Good question,” the nurse admitted, “It’s not because we are nosey, although they are nosey questions. We just want to be aware of where you are sexually now so once the therapies are over and the radiation has worn off, you are at least back to where you started from.”

Well that made sense. And she also said the effects of the therapy could last up to six months, so after that time we would take another account of where we are sexually.

Perfect. Something else to look forward to, but quite honestly the least of my concerns.

Once her part of the questioning was complete, like good cop/bad cop, the oncologist came in next.

I liked his sense of humor right away. When he came in he put a binder on the table and let us know it was all the information we would need regarding the therapy and it was ours to keep. My wife plopped her own binder on the table and said, “Great. I have a binder, too, and a lot of questions here.”

He laughed and said, “Well next time I expect a powerpoint presentation.”

So now it was the doctor’s turn and he focused his discussion on the therapies themselves. He was a certified expert on proton pencil beam therapy and had been doing it since it first became available about 15 years ago. He said it had come along in leaps and bounds over those 15 years, but it was still considered “experimental”, so the insurance may or may not approve my request.

He also said in many cases insurance will approve the therapy, but since it is very expensive, they only approve 5 therapies. 28 was the optimum number of therapies for proton therapy. If only 5 were approved, it was still possible to do proton, but he gave us an analogy of a pizza. If I came to 5 visits or 28 visits, I would be receiving the same dosage of radiation. So I could have proton pizza and I could eat it in 5 slices or in 28 smaller slices, but either way, I was going to get the whole pizza.

As far as the difference between 5 visits and 28 visits, he provided another analogy of Russian nesting dolls, of which I have several for my Christmas display. He said it’s far better with proton therapy to have more visits so the tumor itself is broken down and the DNA killed slower. Like a Russian nesting doll, the radiation can destroy a layer of the tumor at a time and break it down smaller for the next session. And these sessions would be 28 continuous weekdays in a row for nearly 6 weeks.

His explanations helped a lot and the analogies did too. He also told me a few additional things and the next steps. Those consisted of having to have an MRI, a PET Scan and getting the placer balls completed.

I immediately informed him of my last attempt at an MRI and how unsuccessful that had been.

“The last time they told him he couldn’t get medication or anything. Isn’t there something he can be given to get it done?” my wife had asked.

Dr. Escott didn’t even pause, “Absolutely. I’ll send a prescription for Xanax you’ll take the day of the MRI and I don’t think you’ll have any problems.”

That was relieving consider Dr. Sulek has said it couldn’t be done, but I’d never had Xanax before, either, so I wasn’t completely sure how I’d react. But I liked his confidence.

He also informed us that if the insurance did not cover all 28 proton therapies, we wouldn’t do proton therapy at all. I would need to do photon therapy. Photon therapy was basically an x-ray of my whole pelvis, so it had a higher risk of damaging my bladder and my rectal wall as well as higher risks of secondary cancer. But It was also a lot cheaper and insurance almost always approved all 28. I mean, radiation isn’t a good thing for your body, either. For now I’d pray we got approved for Proton therapy and just go from there.

And the last thing was that I needed to have another PSA test. He showed me some charts and risk levels for my cancer. The risk levels depended on other criteria like my gleason scores, my PSA levels and if the tumor is large or has grown through the prostate. Currently I was at low risk because my tumor appeared to be small, my gleason scores were no higher than a few 7’s and my last PSA test came back at 8.3.

I didn’t even remember having that last PSA test but it must have been at my 6 month checkup. And it was another point higher than the year before. I let them suck my blood and that was the end of that.

So almost three hours later we were sitting down to lunch. Obviously we had great concerns about whether or not the therapy would be approved by my insurance. And we also had concerns about the continued rise of my PSA. If for some reason my PSA levels had reached 10, my risk group would change to intermediate risk and that would mess everything up.

This consultation was another hurdle crossed, but once again it was time for the waiting game until results were called in and additional appointments were set up. Needless to say the next week or so had me sitting on pins and needles. Will my Proton therapy be approved? If so, how many treatments? How soon would we have the MRI and would the Xanax help? With one more hurdle crossed, all I could do was wait to cross the next one that stood not too far in the future.

Next up…MRI attempt #2!

Merry Fucking Christmas

Merry Fucking Christmas

So on the personal side of things, the next six months were quite eventful and fun, although an emotional roller coaster.

First, about a week after my biopsy, my daughter got fired for no reason from an unscrupulous employer who turns out to be quite a scumbag. That is one problem that can happen with small business owners and nothing will piss you off hotter than your child finding that our the hard way. Thankfully she found a better, almost full-time job with a much better company. So in the end, God’s plan is better (as we like to say) even if at first it doesn’t seem that way.

In May, my youngest child graduated from high school. High school! Wasn’t he just in kindergarten? And my oldest turned 27 a week later. Pretty sure he was just in elementary school, himself. Now one is off to the University of Tennessee and the other has glowing career working for UBS in Nashville. I couldn’t be prouder of any of my kids.

A fun summer splashing around in our best friend’s, Jill and John’s, pool led to September and a much-needed, long-awaited 31st wedding anniversary trip to Jamaica. If you get the chance, we really can’t say enough good things about our Sandals vacation and we highly recommend it. Our best friends made the trip with us and these are some memories I would have to keep me warm over the next few months because, as we all know, with the highs come the lows. And now the lows were just beginning.

The first was receiving a bill for genetic testing from my last biopsy. We had not done genetic testing the first time since we thought I would be having an MRI, But, since I couldn’t handle an MRI, and we had to have more data on the tumor itself, Dr. Sulek had submitted it for genetic testing. He told me at the time but I really thought nothing of it because I figured it was included in everything else I was paying for. So on top of the facility fee, the lab fees and the anesthetist fee, the garbage fee, testicle drum test fee and whatever else they could charge us for, now I got a genetic testing fee. And that was $2800.

WHAT?!?! I almost jumped out of my skin. Long story short where the sample got sent it wasn’t “in-network” (I never got asked where to send it!) and too bad, so sad, I was the responsible party for the balance. FML.

One week after I got back from Jamaica I had my annual check-up where my noseykins PCP gets to ask all those personal questions I am never quite honest about, but honest enough to still feel good about myself. And I can lie however I want to his face but one thing that does not lie is blood tests.

I got my blood test results and everything except my A1C (yet another tale for another time) came back excellent, even my liver and kidney functions. Good on me! One other result that was not so good, however, was my PSA level. That scored a 7.3.

I have to say when I saw that result, my heart jumped. Nearly double what it had been just one year before. Did that mean my cancer had grown? Why would it suddenly rise so steeply? I didn’t like any of this and I certainly wasn’t telling my wife. In fact I told no one. But luckily enough my six-month check-in with my urologist was the next week. I would wait and just run it past him.

When we discussed it he didn’t seem to have anywhere near the same level of alarm as me. In fact, it didn’t really seem to bother him that much at all, other than to say that PSA levels could fluctuate wildly for a slew of reasons. Could it be due to the cancer? Sure. Could it be something else? Sure. The only way to know was another biopsy.

This had been a tough medical year for me (I had thumb, knee and blood  pressure issues in addition to the unexpected medical bills) so I had actually hit my deductible for the first time in my life (welcome to your late 50’s, old man!). Knowing this and thinking it might save me some money, I asked if we could move the biopsy from next March to this-coming December so it fell in the same calendar year.

After a brief discussion, he agreed and said he would send off for the authorizations. Then, much to my surprise, he sent me off without the ol’ finger-in-the-ass routine. At least there was one break.

Now I had to wait for the approval, which I thought might give us some trouble since it had not even been a year since the previous biopsy.But, after a little discussion between my doctor and my insurance, it was approved and set for 12/13/24. Friday the 13th. Seriously?

So off we went for what was becoming old hat for us. I drove to the office on that chilly, December day under the canopy of a leaden sky not too worried about the procedure at all this time. Just hoping nurse Peart would not be assisting today. The biopsy and everything involved was pretty routine this time. Name, rank, serial number. Name, rank serial number. Name, rank serial number. But no nurse Peart having a go at my balls and no problem filling my pitcher with pee. I was really catching on to this. Third time’s a charm. Pretty soon I might become a professional.

The only out-of-the ordinary thing that happened was when Dr. Sulek made his pre-surgical visit.

He gave his normal pleasantries but then started into the procedure and post-biopsy expectations.

“So I’ll be putting the gold placer balls in and injecting the SpaceOAR gel so when you wake up this time, you might feel a little extra pressure in your prostate, almost like you have to poo, but you don’t. You’ll have to get used to that over time.”

When he looked up from his file he stopped talking, obviously noticing the painfully perplexed looks on our faces. My wife and I exchanged a confused glance.

“Um,” I started, “I thought we were only hear for a biopsy today.”

Dr. Sulek sat up and quickly started paging through his file.

“Oh, forget everything I just said. Sorry, they had my schedule listed incorrectly. Yes, you’re here for a biopsy.”

Breathing a loud sigh of relief and clutching my chest I said, “Well that escalated quickly. I’m glad we talked this over now.”

To which he chuckled and said, “Oh, don’t worry. It’s listed on the procedure room. We wouldn’t have gotten that far. They just had my schedule out of place.”

I trusted Dr. Sulek but this also threw me off for a few minutes, although my wife and I did have a few chuckles over it. But everything went fine from there. We were in and out of the building faster than any previous visit and now we waited on results. The appointment for that was set for a little over a week away on 12/23/24.

This time I set it up for a telehealth visit. I mean, if it saves us some gas and we still have the same information, what would it matter? After all, I was positive my results would be “more of the same.” I felt like I was told it would be years before we had to do anything, if we had to do anything. And my survival rate was a 95% chance of living at least 10 years. I liked my chances.

After getting hooked up through a zoom call, my wife and I sat at our kitchen table with the laptop in front of us. We experienced a few minor technical difficulties but then his face appeared on the screen. We exchanged pleasantries and then he ruffled through same papers and began to present our results.

“So the samples have started to come back with a few more 3+4 patterns on the Gleason scale. So we are seeing more 7’s results than last time.”

My heart sank. The “last time” was only 9 months ago.

“We’ve also seen an increase in the percentage of cancer contained in the core samples.”

He moved the familiar results sheet closer to the computer and pointed to a few different graphs that represented the cancer.

“So you can see here we have more of the samples coming back with that 3+4 pattern. That’s better than 4+3 but the rise in the number of samples is cause for concern, number one. Number two is the percentage of cancer that is contained in these samples.”

My wife was making furious notes and my heart was sinking deeper in my chest all the way to my stomach.

“You can see here,” He pointed at the numbers on the graph, “Several samples have jumped up to 30 and 40% cancer rates.”

I pushed my face closer to the screen soaking it all in.

“And this one,” he put his finger on the tallest column on the chart, “Is up to 45%.”

My wife scribbled more notes and I took a deep breath.

“So what does this mean.”

“Well,” he maintained an even although slightly somber tone, “It means the cancer spread and it’s a little more aggressive than we’d like it to be. I’m afraid it’s at a point where we’re going to need to do something. I think it’s time to start treatment.”

Well Merry fucking Christmas.

I sat stunned. The words I never wanted to hear. I thought it would be a long time, several years at least, until I heard them. My wife spoke up first.

“So, when you say treatment,” She asked, “What treatment are we talking about.”

“Well that’s the good news. Since it’s been caught so early, there are several options we are looking at. Robotic arm removal is a good one you should probably consider.”

Cutting it out? No fucking way. Not happening.

“Well as we talked about before, that is not the option I want, Dr. Sulek. There are too many side effects to that, including sexually, that I’m not willing to live with.”

“Well there is really only a 50/50 chance in it causing erectile disfunction.”

Only 50/50? Sorry, too high for me, doc.

“Well I don’t think we’re willing to risk that,” my wife chimed in and I nodded vigorously, “So what are the other options?”

I must admit, I tuned out here. I got so wrapped up in his first suggestion being surgery that even if he did mention a list of options, I only heard one other and that was the radioactive seeds for radiation therapy. And I would figure out next time I apparently didn’t even hear that correctly. I think at that point I had really heard enough for the day.

I’m sure he talked on for a while about treatments and options and blabbity blah, but I really didn’t hear a word. I just wanted this call to be over. And blessedly it was.

“Well, you have several options to think over. You should do some research and think about it and you can get back to me.”

Yeah, Sure. Whatever.

We ended the call and my wife and I sat there staring at the table for a few minutes in a stunned silence. Then I looked at her and she looked at me and I shrugged.

“Well, that’s that,” I said, or something equally poetic.

Her face reddened and we hugged.

“Well I guess I have some options to look into,” I hoped my voice sounded stronger than it Thought. I was trying not to be scared when, in fact, I was scared shitless.

My wife started to cry and hugged me harder. “I don’t want to lose you.”

I hugged her back.

“Well, you’re not going to lose me,” I assured her, “I think it might be a tough road, but you’re not going to lose me.”

I mean there was only a .05% chance at this phase of the game.

We stepped back from each other but still held hands.

“It’s all going to be alright,” I said for her as much as me, “We’re going to get through this because, well, we have to.”

We hugged again and I stopped talking, mostly because her tears were starting to choke me up and I don’t cry. In fact I’ve only cried once in the last seven years and, by golly, I wasn’t going to start now.

She had a pre-planned shopping excursion with our friend, Leighann, to start getting things ready for a combined Christmas dinner, and I had to get back to work. But I’m not sure my head was totally in it at that point. In fact, my mind solely raced around one subject at this point- treatment. Time to scour the internet for treatment information and scare the shit out of myself again. Boy, I hope there are lots of pictures.

Some thoughts on where we are headed

Author’s note: I stated writing this piece 10 years ago almost to the day. As I sometimes do, I start a draft, get an outline done, and then promise to come back to it to add more as I have time. Sometimes that happens…sometimes it doesn’t. So, I am going to post this 10 year old part first, and then add details later to the other sections as I have time. I just think it was cool that I was thinking about these subjects a decade ago, when some of them were not widely known about. Today, so of these “out there” ideas, are almost mainstream.

Davestrodomus earning his name.

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Part written in 2015

I think about the future a lot.  Some of my favorite topics include:

1. Uploading your brain onto a chip (basically immortality)
    

2. Schools as dinosaurs (people say we need them for "socialization" while instructors tell the kids to sit down, shut-up and listen to their version of the facts).
    

3. The inevitable death of money (hard to imagine, but it IS inevitable)
    

4. The FACT, that political representatives are no longer needed (we just haven't figured this out yet).
    

5. A.I. in the most general sense, and in more anthropological ways than most people feel comfortable considering.

These topics are my favorites, because the technology to do each of these things is not "futuristic".  The technology to do these things either exists today, or will exist in the very near future.  This is not fantacy...it's technological fact.

Each and any of these topics above could, should and have been the topics of books, videos, podcasts, movies and endless opinions.  And they will continue to be, and should be discussed at great length going forward.  It's all important, mind-boggling stuff.

The purpose of this piece is to "work backward" from general to the more specific.  To simply crack the can open on the topics above, and just take a peak into the depth of each topic.  Because to try to do even one of these topics justice is impossible in a blog post, and maybe impossible in general.  So here goes...

Uploading your Brain

DoDo Schools

Death of Money

No need for Reps

Are we Larvae?

Second Verse, Same as the First

The fourth entry in Keith Reimert’s blog series in regard to his experiences and thoughts as he battles prostate cancer. To see the whole series, go to the Index page .

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Second Verse, Same as the First

So my son’s marching season ended and gave way to Winter Guard season. If you are unfamiliar with that, it’s where the color guard from Marching band performs alone with props and recorded music with shiny outfits and lots of pretty cool gymnastic/dance-style shows. I may not have described it perfectly, but it’s actually really cool. You should check it out some time.

So my prostate news and checkups have been pretty quiet since the MRI and I am cruising along staying busy with work and being Winter Guard equipment dad for my son’s senior year. My daughter also performed in winter guard, so this was another long-time responsibility for me that I really enjoyed.

But now we are zooming through to March and my urologist scheduled a second biopsy for March 3rd, 2024. Only this time I really knew what to expect, so I honestly wasn’t nervous at all. Once again my wife was my chauffeur for the day and professional hand-holder.  Everything about the office was the same, except the people.

I walk to the desk and am greeted with, “Hello. What’s your name, birthday and reason for being here?”

Name, rank, serial number.

Name, rank, serial number.

I obviously won’t need to go into too much detail here since it really was a lot of the same. Only a couple of real differences made it memorable. First, I stupidly decided I had to pee before the procedure. I did have to pee and my fear was that under anesthetic I would lose control of my bladder and piss all over the good doctor. The image of a sudden urine stream unexpectedly dousing his masked face gave me pause and I decided to negate the possibility, so I emptied my bladder. This was a mistake.

The next issue was that the nurse I flashed my boy bits to this time not only strapped them to me with the force of an industrial strength ratchet strap but once she was done, she reached out and patted my balls, a little roughly, where they were taped to my pelvis (I wish I could say stomach but sadly my balls aren’t that big) like she was patting some kid on the head.

Pat, pat, pat.

Now if you are not someone inflicted with testicles, you won’t understand that even the slightest tap can cause discomfort and cramping in your mid-section. Although it was a light tap, it definitely got my attention. I lay there staring at the ceiling with my legs spread wide in the stirrups and I’m sure my brow furrowed. What the hell was that f…

Pat, pat, pat.

I didn’t even get to complete the thought when she reached forward and patted them again! Now I got a little irritated. I thought to myself, “look lady, that’s not pair of bongos down there for your amusement…”

Pat, Pat, Pat.

Well I’m a son-of-a-bitch, she did it again. This time I immediately lifted my head to glare at her and was about to ask her exactly what the fuck she was doing when the anesthetist distracted me.

“Okay Mr. Reimert, here comes the laughing gas,” he said, and strapped the familiar tube under my nose and plugged it into my nostrils. I lay my head back on the pillow hoping Neil Peart was done performing a solo on my exposed nuts. To my relief, the solo was over and I started to relax. I also started to wonder where the doctor was. Usually he was there by now.

I don’t know if the anesthetist forgot to warn me he was turning on the general anesthetic or if I was so annoyed with Nurse Peart that I didn’t hear him say it but next thing I know I’m waking up on the lazy boy seated on wet paper next to my wife. I never even saw the doctor come in. The surroundings I found myself in were familiar enough and I think it was exactly the same recovery room. I knew the drill but the nurse still had to come in and tell me any way, but as soon as she left I had the urge to pee.

The thing about these procedures that I’ve touched on before is the jackhammer stabbing my prostate makes it feel pressure. And this time they took more samples because they already knew I had cancer and basically where it was. I think that created even more pressure than last time and I stood up almost immediately and dropped my junk in the plastic pitcher. But nothing doing. It just wasn’t time and I was really jumping the gun. I wasn’t listening to my wife (who is used to it) or the nurse who both said to just wait. It’s a false alarm.

But I wouldn’t hear it and I spent the next 15 or 20 minutes drinking my coke and my coffee and getting up nearly as soon as I sat down thinking I had to pee again. And I was getting really frustrated. If I was pissed about not being able to piss last time, just hang a cape over my shoulders and draw and “S” on my chest because this time I was SUPER pissed.

My wife sat next to me holding her tongue and endured my ramblings on for about 45 minutes that day. A constant tirade about nothing working right and now I feel the urge to pee but can’t pee and now I’m stuck in this place until I CAN pee and I’m hungry and I’m tired and I just want to go home. That about sums it up.

Finally, the dam burst and I filled my pitcher and we were allowed to go home. My wife told me she felt bad about my frustration but that I also got a little too worked up over it. And next time (because we already knew there would be a next time) I needed to relax more and just let it happen. I also have high blood pressure so she worries that when I get that angry I’m going to stroke out.

I knew she was right (probably not something anyone tells their spouse often enough) about both things but my frustration wasn’t just about peeing. A lot of these appointments were costly and time consuming and the constant just not-knowing what lies ahead started wearing on me. But I needed to get a handle on it. So I apologized for my outburst and I meant it. Next time I would be more patient.

Another week later and we sat with Dr. Sulek again discussing the results.

“It’s really just a lot of the same,” he said bringing out papers with the results, “You have a few more 7’s on the Gleason Scale, but the percentage of cancer in the core isn’t very high.”

He continued talking about the highest cancer percentage was only 30% and that that was only one core. The rest that did have cancer (still only about 7 samples) were all less than 10% cancer. So for now, it was the second verse, same as the first. We would just continue to monitor. My next appointment was in 6 months, and everything would start going down hill from there.

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Click HERE for the next blog entry in the series…

THE GREEK PROBLEM "What do you want from Greeks?"

By David Decoteau

“What do you want from greeks?”

I went to Bloomsburg Univeristy to ask this question about 10 years ago. I’m still waiting for an answer.

The question developed after I had been involved with greek life at Bloomsburg University since 1982 when I joined a fraternity there (Delta Pi). My fraternal experience arguablely provided more usable education to my adult life than most of my classes. I taught me about running a small business, how to get elected to office. How to manage chaos. How to deal with stress. It taught me some basic accounting and how to run a meeting using Roberts Rules of order. All of these tools I use to this day, as I run my businesses, hold public offices, and do work in my community. I also got a beautiful and smart wife out of the experience, which led to my present family. So to say I owe greek life at Bloomburg a debt of gratitude would be putting it mildly. Based on that debt, I decided to stay involved all these years, in an effort to “give back” to an organization that gave me all those things mentioned; plus life-long friends and business associates.

I decided to go meet with folks from the Greek Life Office at Bloomsburg and ask this question after hearing and seeing some things that gave me concern. At that meeting, I told those in charge, that if some changes weren’t made, and made soon, you were going to start seeing more students hurt and killed, not just here, but on campuses across the country. This was long before the Piazza law, or any of the most recent (and consistently bad) news from Bloomsburg and other campuses.

That day began a decade-long odysesy for me that continues to this day. In fact, I asked the exact same question, at a recent Hazing Task Force Committee meeting, to an entirely new administration of Student Life and Greek Life professionals….and still no answer. So much has changed…and yet nothing has changed.

The rest of this piece will be dedicated to relaying my oddysy and asking everyone who reads it to ask themselves the same question: “what do WE want from Greeks?”

The Problems

(As of 2008) I see Greeks doing dumb things

I got motivated to approach campus those 10 years ago after reading about Block Party in the newspaper, and then attending Homecoming, and visiting my own Bloomsburg Fraternity late Homecoming evening. Although many of the things that were traditional in the fraternity had remained he same, the large majority of what I witnessed was unrecognizable. What the brothers were telling me were “traditions of the fraternity”, I can honestly say weren’t things I had seen even two years prior.

Problem 1. Funny things about college students and “traditions”: because of the churn of graduating seniors and incoming freshmen, what passes as a “tradition” can be something that was just created a couple semesters prior. Because those who saw it’s birth are now graduated, and those who remain, erroneously assume that because they witnessed this thing…it’ must have been around forever. This is one of the problems I wanted to talk to campus about.

Remember, these are 17 and 18 year old kids we are talking about here. How was your logical thought patterns when you were that age? Can you remember? If you try real hard, can you remember how you though you knew so much? Now compare that to what you know now. Big difference, right? So I thought maybe some adult involvement from someone, or a group of people, who has seen many decades of the fraternity might add some consistency to the situation. Maybe help stem some of those illconceived “traditions” before they could really get started and take on a life of their own. This was one suggestion.

My first act as an involved Alumni was to write down in a 40 page new member program which included actual traditions that seemed to work for the long-haul, were safe, modernized, transparent and helped create strong men, and strong organizations. I develoed this document with the active brotherhood of the time, and we called that document the Millenium Recruitment Program (MRP). It was a guideline, and not completely finished, because we wanted more brother imput before calling it complete. There was enough that it could be reviewed as a concept draft document of goals.

Problem 2. “Illegal Pledges” - What this means is taking a guy as a potential new member who doen’t meet the criteria for membership as outlined by the Univerisity. Typically that criteria is a 2.5 grade point average (gpa) and 15 credits completed. Studies show that students who join fraternities typically do better if they have this minimally before adding the rigors and demands of greek life to their college schedule.

However, due to declining membership in Greek Life at Bloomsburg University (the reasons for which are debatable, but started right after the “riot” of 1990) see graph below)) many organizations were desperate for members. Groups would offer secret bids to younger guys, to get them before they could “legally” rush a fraternity. If an organization played by the rules and waited: they lost new members, as other groups would offer membership. As a result, all organizations needed to join the “illegal” activities or watch their already low numbers decrease to zero.

Problem 3. - Blackballing - Illegal pledges alone was a problem, but the bigger problem was the combination of “illegals” and a new unwritten policy between organizations that if a student would quit a pledging program: they would be “blackballed” from all fraternites for the balance of their college experience. This was a really bad combination for students, as the presure to do whatever an organization demanded would be intense, and since they were “illegal”, those brothers would have no support system from the school, or ability to report the bad behaviors: because they were already deemed “illegal” and would have gotten themselves in trouble in the process of reporting a bad actor. This is a SUPER DANGEROUS combination of factors that motivated my trip to campus to see what I could suggest as solutions.

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As you can see, membership started to fall dramatically around 1990, and accounted for some desperate behaviors. Chart is from 2009. Right around when my odyssey began.

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First meetings

(2010) Progress… then the wall

Representatives from Greek and Student life agreed to meet with me and discuss my concerns. After two meetings, I really felt that they were glad Alumni were bringing these topics to their attention and they seemed eager to investigate some solutions. Some of those solutions included more adult Advisors and maybe dealing with the “illegal” problem, by adjusting requirements and allowing freshman to pledge after a mandatory informational session that outlined why they should want to wait a bit before pledging. They also seemed interested in the draft MRP document I submitted for review.

Then came our third meeting. The only difference at this meeting was that the Director of Greek Life Gretchen Osterman was included.

We started by reviewing the discussions of the first two meetings. We identified the concerns and the situation for Ms. Osterman. When we were done, Ms. Osterman said, “There is no problem with Illegal pledges at Bloomsburg. And that MRP document you submitted is hazing.” I’ll never forget it. I was floored.

I told Ms. Osterman, that I had just spent a few nights last week with entire pledge classes, literally dozens, of “illegal” guys from multiple organizatioins. To this, she repeated, “There is no “illegal” pledges, and no problem with this at Bloomsburg University.” Almost robot-like.

To this, I had to say, “Well, there are only three options here: one, you think I am lying. Two, you are lying. Three, you are incompetent at your job, and you don’t know what is going on with the students under your charge.” This may not have endeared me to Ms. Osterman, but it was the truth as far as I could determine.

Ms. Osterman went on to recite some things about title 9, minority students, LGTBQ issues, and how Alumni were out of touch, and didn’t understand the environment for greek life in today’s climate. As time went on in this odyssey, I would come to realize that this was Ms. Osterman’s mantra, as she would repeat this notion of hers many times in the coming years. As she did, I always had to wonder how many evenings at 2:00 a.m. she was sitting in a basement, having a beer, and really getting to know the students who she claimed I “didn’t know or understand”. Because I had done so on many occasions.

In regard to the MRP document, I explained that I had witnessed many unsafe practices in the fraternities in regard to hazing and what they thought were “traditions”. I explained to her and everyone in the room, the MRP was developed using peer reviewed process, most tried and true over decades (or even centuries) in other organizations like sports teams, ROTC, and even boy scouts) as ways to create strong men of good character. In contrast to what was presenlty happening, which was haphazardly created and applied “programs” that included alcohol and no real goals for members.

She said she didn’t care, and again, robot-like repeated, “It’s hazing”. And with that, the meeting was over, and all my concerns dismissed. She did say I could submit the MRP officially for review. I did. And it came back with a note that said, “it’s hazing. Requiring members to do anything, or behave in any way to either gain accesss to the organization or remain a member of the organization, is our present definition of hazing.”

This definition of hazing remains in effect today. In my estimation, it is the root cause of most of the problems we see in regard to fraternal and sorority behaviors today (that combined with incomplete frontal lobe brain development as this age).

If the above is the definition of hazing, then all of life is hazing:

• My wife requires me to behave in certain ways to maintain my membership in our marriage.

• My job requires me to behave in certain ways to maintain my membership in the work force.

• Even Bloomsburg University requires passing grades and certain behaviors to remain a student.

If this is the “Prime Directive” driving all of Greek life, at all the campuses in the world, it’s no wonder it’s an absolute disaster.

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If you compare Bloomsburg Greeks to other state schools, the big thing that sticks out is how many more organizations we have than other schools and how that translates to less members per organization. Most “cut throat” for new members. Was this by design when the new Director was brought in after the 1990 riots?

The Solutions

(Around 2011) I see Admins doing dumber things

Unintended Consequences

When parties were getting too big in the late 1980’s, the police started to go to the distributors to get the names of the places and people to which they were delivering kegs. This lead to fines. The students quickly figured out what was happening, and they started buying cases of beers. No one signs for cases of beer, so it was harder to track. So now, at Block party, instead of having a red solo cup full of beer, each student had a potential projectile they could throw. This led to injuries. Plus beer is heavy to carry aound in backpacks. What isn’t heavy is “handles” of vodka and other booze…and that’s where we are today. Kids at college no longer drink beer…they drink booze. So that’s an improvement, Right? Now, instead of drinking a few beers from a cup and getting full and tired and going to bed, kids drink a bottle of booze and get backout drunk on a regular basis. Probably not how everyone wanted things to work out when they first started busting folks with kegs…but that is how it worked out.

Dance of the Lemons

One of the guys in the fraternity asked me, “What happens with the money I pay for dues and fines to the school? I don’t seem to get anything in return for that money?” I thought that was a good question, and I set out to get an answer.

I called the people directly responsible for taking and using that money (the greek life office) and asked the question. Unfortunately, in those days, the person who held that job made it very clear that “answering the questions of Alumni, is not in my job description.” So we moved on. I say “we” because right around that time, other Alumni were starting to get curious about the operations of Greek Life at Bloomsburg, and we started a facebook group. That group today is approaching 5000 members.

What were Greeks?

When I was in college, the Greeks were the leaders. Sure, Animal House was out, and an instant classic, but beneath all that, most real students thought and believed that being greek was part of success. it gave you a network of brothers who were also interested in being successful. Despite the Bluto stereotypes of “frat boys”, most of us felt it was a leg up on everyone else. A way to hit the ground running when you graduated. A network of other potentially successful folks who you could trust and work with, based on your common bond.

Today, I don’t think most people list their fraternal affilitation on their LinkedIn profiles. it’s an embarrasement for a lot of folks, and a potential lightning rod for potential employers (or at least HR folks) who might not have a favorable opinion of Greek life today. So why bother listing it? We see that even in the largest contributors to Bloomsburg University. Most will be lauded for their charitable giving and philanthropy, but somehow, the fact that they are greek Alumni seem mostly to be missing.

Dwayne Greenly namesake of the Greenly Center is a Beta Sig Brother He gave $1million.

Jahri Evans - NFL standout and Superbowl winner - $500K - Scoreboard - Omega Psi Phi brother

Mike Boguski - $1 million - Zeta Psi brother - School of Business

Skip Kinney - Keynote Speaker at Homecoming and Founder of - Delta Pi brother

This from 2012.

What is our product?

What tools do we have?

What will be our product?

This was long before Greek students and fraternal organizations are under attack on our college campuses around the world. And why shouldn’t they be? They are terrible people. We have all seen them in the movies, or even worse: had a personal experience with them when we went to college. Either some cocky, oversexed and pickled “Biff” of a fraternity dude, with his privileged attitude, bad grades, and elitist mindset. Or some “Barbie Doll” sorority bimbo, with her perfect everything: sans brains and personality. All greeks do is make colleges dumber, meaner, and perpetuate bad habits of the past. These people have it coming. They are obviously out of control with their hazing and are killing young people everywhere with their hazing, binge drinking, and lawless raucous behaviors. Screw them. Lock them up! Guilty as charged! Good riddance!

But I’m here to tell you that it ain’t gonna happen like that. Laws like the recently adopted Piazza law (and others before it) will keep making things worse on campuses. Let me give you a little perspective from a person who has worked on this problem for 40 years and who was a Greek himself:

People have a constitutional right to assemble. It’s a good right. It keeps people from being bullied by a tyrannical leader or society. We should probably keep it.

Many Pledging programs were designed using the practices of our military and more specific the ROTC program. A lot of fraternity guys in the heyday of Greek life were in the ROTC programs. They would learn about how to put people in difficult situations in the program (or at boot camp) and then bring that knowledge back to the fraternity to put it into application there. Their reasoning: if this program makes good, honest, reliable solders: wouldn’t it do the same for my fraternity brothers? It’s a compelling argument.

Just as studies are beginning to show that the #metoo movement has cost women access.

And prohibition just forces booze and drugs to be distributed through illegal supply lines,

And the more you try to limit gun sales, or humans crossing the border…the more demand is created.

I’d offer the same will happen for Greeks.

People will assemble. And, I think you want them to assemble. It’s where ideas get shared and spread. Where we make life long bonds. Where we build a love for our alma mater which translates into donations to the school down the road. Getting together is a good thing. What’s not good, is the way people with power sometimes treat those without power. But that is something we could more easily address using formalized groups, then if a bomb is thrown into Greek life, and those same kids “go underground” with no supervision and no way to contact them.

Underground groups are what is presently happening at both Bloomsburg and around the nation. Some have been sanctioned by the National organizations that previously used to enforce (or try to enforce) a pretty good set of rules on their members. Now, those “underground” groups are completely rudderless. Does this seem like a step in the right direction?