Beltane Closing Moon
I can feel June 11th out there, pulling me toward it. An hour to an hour and a half with Dr. Eigner and Kate, deciding how to go after this disease that wants to live. It’s continued existence is, as physicians say, incompatible with life (in this case my own). Sleep comes easily and I feel confident about the possible treatments, yet there is still this sense that life runs right up to June 11th, then descends into a dark cave.
After June 11th we move from determining exactly what’s going on: staging, best approaches, options to action. A surgery date will be set. Then, the surgery itself and the recovery, which can be unpleasant, but not dangerous according to Dr. Walsh’s book. It is that transition from diagnosis and planning to the active removal of the prostate and its cancer that is the cave.
This cave is another redoubt of uncertainty. Until the surgery is complete, the pathology done and the surgeon reports, all the positive possibilities are just that, possibilities. And, of course, this is what matters most in the entire process, the results.
All my reading and Kate’s give me great odds. The testimony of friends who’ve undergone this procedure or a similar one reassures me, too. Stories of those outside my own acquaintance, but known to friends Charlie Haislet, Roy Wolf, Mark Odegard are also positive.
My heart believes all will be well. My head says yes, probably. We’ve done what we can, taken the steps necessary to make a good outcome happen. After that, then, matters move beyond my control. And I’m fine with that. Hopeful in a confident, but not sure, manner.
