April's fool

April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

Winter kept us warm, covering

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

A little life with dried tubers.

I've heard that some dogs can smell it, though what sort of odor abnormal cell growth could have is beyond my ability to imagine. Maybe I should have just gotten a dog. Might have saved some time. Now, after almost a year, two MRIs, assorted EKGs, CT scans and four biopsies, the men in the lab coats finally have what they've been searching for. As my brother said, if you let doctors dig around long enough, they’re bound to find something. It took them 84 needle pokes but they finally found it. Gleason score 4+4, 5% whatever that means. Funny word “positive”.

I’m enrolled in a research study at the National Institutes of Health, trading my samples for treatment. I’m young for this kind of thing, so they find me interesting. Maybe there’s something they can find in my genes that can be of use. I am now a patient on the same campus where they treat Ebola patients. Me and my little ‘ol prostate. Go figure. Though I guess I’m lucky to live so close to such sophisticated facilities, and to qualify for such exceptional attention, this is hardly the way I wish to be “special”.    

The doctor who called me with the results of the latest tests told me that the volume is low and seems “contained”. On Monday I went in for bone and CT scans. Staging scans, they’re called. They determine what stage the disease is in. All the world, after all, is a stage. Then on Wednesday I went in for a consult to hear the recommended treatment options. Cut it out with a blade or laser, irradiate it, blast it with drugs or some combination thereof.

I can add “11:35 am, April 1, 2015, in my car on the way to a meeting in White Oak” to my where were you when you heard the news list.

Of course I haven’t really started to even use the word yet. It gets a lot of attention when I do and I don’t want to induce any unnecessary freaking out. Plenty of time to freak out later. For now it’s just the constellation in which I was born and since I don’t believe in astrology it’s no threat at all.

Join us next week for another exciting episode...