One of the gifts that I received for Christmas (by request) was a new, big, fluffy bathrobe for use in the hospital and around the house afterwards. Of course, I had to take it for a rigorous test spin when I got out of bed this morning. I wore it all day. All freakin’ day. 🙂 It works great!

That meant today was a day of total relaxation. No calls. No lists. No organizing. No cleaning. Not even checking the mail. Just lounging around in my robe, getting caught up on reading some magazines, watching a little Food Network, and even taking a little cat nap in the middle of the day.

All good things must come to an end, however. When I went to get dressed to go to the market, I couldn’t find my wallet. Full panic ensued.

I tore apart my home office, bedroom, utility room, truck, both bathrooms, and even went through the trash and dirty laundry. It was nowhere to be found. I knew that I had it with me for the trip back from my sister’s yesterday—I took money out of it to pay the toll on the highway—so I knew it had to be here someplace.

Then I remembered… I had gone into the living room to make a phone call last night and forgot that I took it out of my pocket when I sat on the sofa. There it was on the coffee table. Crisis averted.

So now that I found it, I can head off to the market and restock for the week.

Tomorrow, I’ll get back into the preparation mode.

As I was pulling out of the driveway Friday morning to drive to my sister’s house, I noticed an envelope leaning against the front door. I put the truck in park, hopped out, and grabbed it. It was a FedEx from Dr. Indy’s office. I tossed it on the passenger’s seat, put the truck in reverse, and forgot about it until I checked my mailbox when I returned home this evening. There was a brown envelope also from Dr. Indy’s office.

I’ve yet to look at either, and probably won’t until tomorrow.

Christmas with the family was fun, although I’ll have to admit there were a few moments where I really had to force myself not to go down the “woe is me” path. Watching a three-month old baby experience her first Christmas was a great way to get my mind on happier things. (Plus, it can be a hoot watching all the adults interact with the baby, too.)

In any case, I’m safely back home, putting all the gifts away, and mapping out what has to be done over the next week or so. I have a couple of pre-surgery appointments later in the week, and then I should be ready to go. In theory. The closer I get, I’m sure the anxiety level will increase.

For privacy reasons, I won’t post the exact details of the surgery here on the blog. I’ll send out an e-mail with that information later in the week.

Oh. And my apologies for my poor punctuation on my Christmas greetings (cleaned up since originally posted). I used my phone to do the posts and apparently there’s some compatibility issues with posting to the blog from a phone. (Hey, worrying about punctuation means I’m not worrying about cancer or surgery for a few seconds… )

Today began with a drive to the hospital where I’m having surgery for some pre-surgery tests: EKG, blood work, and urine screening. Of course there was one more round of medical history questions. “When was the last time you stubbed your little toe? When was the last time you had a hangnail?” Okay, maybe not quite that bad. But it seemed like it.

When I was done, I was completely registered for the surgery and the nurse even gave me the little plastic ID bracelet that I’ll have to wear once I’m admitted to the hospital. “Make sure you bring this back on the day of the surgery,” she instructed me. Wow. I guess I just show up, put the bracelet on, get undressed, and lay on the stretcher. I guess that’s efficient.

The rest of the day was spent making sure everything was in place at work for my extended absence.

In the evening, I went to the local watering hole here in town to meet up with an old boss of mine and a few others for a holiday beverage or three. My former boss left the company seven years ago and took a job in North Carolina. It was good to get caught up and hear some of his funny memories of working here.

Well, it’s almost 9:00 p.m. and I should get things organized for tomorrow, Christmas Eve. I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!

Today was a productive day getting organized for being off work for six weeks. I was able to pull some reference material together, contact lists, etc., for others to refer to while I’m out. I also had an interesting phone call this afternoon with a gentleman from another of our locations.

He needed an assist with something he’s working on, and as we were wrapping up the conversation, I asked what his timeline was for a response. I mentioned that I would be off work on January 4th for surgery and would try to get something to him before then. He inquired about the surgery and when I told him that I had prostate cancer, he opened up. He had been through the same surgery 3 months ago. He shared his story with me and I really appreciated having another patient’s perspective.

I also had to call the FMLA/Short-term Disability (STD—could they possibly not think of a better acronym???) administrators to get that paperwork rolling. The person on the other end of the phone showed little compassion. When she asked why I needed to be out on leave and I told her that I had cancer, she didn’t even bat an eye before tabbing to the next field in her database. Perhaps you become numb hearing everyone’s ailments all day long and my expectations are too high.

Tomorrow morning I have an appointment at the hospital for an EKG and some blood work; next week I have two appointments for more pre-surgery screening.

Hopefully everything comes out okay and no one stomps on the brakes to delay the surgery.

Finally, there were no real doubts about my decision today. No second-guessing. No buyer’s remorse.

Time to throw a load of laundry in the washer and get ready for Christmas Eve at my sister’s.

A day of meetings kept me pretty busy and my mind occupied on things other than the upcoming surgery. But when I returned home for lunch, there were two messages on my answering machine—one from the insurance company and the other from the hospital.

The call from the insurance company was interesting. They said that they learned that I’d be an inpatient at t a hospital soon, and that they needed to collect some important information. When I dialed the number that they left, the entire battery of questions that needed to be answered was done with an automated voice recognition system. I didn’t speak to a human once in the entire call, yet I answered everything they needed to know. Isn’t technology wonderful? (Sarcasm.)

The call from the hospital was to schedule some pre-surgery tests—an EKG and some blood tests. Those will occur Thursday morning in Cincinnati.

Later in the afternoon, I had to call the hospital again to preregister for my stay. Again, another battery of questions. I’ve never been asked what my birthday is so many times in my life! 🙂

I’m going to schedule one more meeting with Dr. Cincy to ensure that we’re both on the same page prior to the surgery. As far as I’m concerned at this point, he’s the guy. No more research. No more reading. Move the burden from my shoulders to his and have faith that he’ll give me the best possible outcome.

I feel comfortable with my choice and I don’t feel as though I’m settling. Let’s move forward and take the next step in the process.

Indonesia. France. Germany. Denmark. U.K. Russia. Canada. U.S. I’ve had page views from each of those countries since the launching this blog. Wow.

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Für meine Freunde in Deutschland:

Vielen Dank für Ihren Kommentar. Wenn Sie möchten, senden Sie mir bitte eine E-Mail mit dem Link in meinem Profil. (In der “Über mich” Teil weiter unten.) Wenn Sie dies tun, kann ich dann, um Ihre Kommentare zu antworten.

Und bitte verzeihen Sie mich für mein schlechtes Deutsch.

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Today got off to an early start when I drove to my biofeedback session in Cincinnati. As I was sitting in the waiting room, I was reading my book and it said, “…this is an expensive way for a man to learn how to start and stop his stream, and indeed, critical studies have demonstrated no great benefit to this elaborate and expensive procedure. “ Something reassuring that I needed to read 10 minutes before starting the session.

One thing that did make the session worthwhile is the lesson that I learned about the catheter and drainage bags. It was very informative and gave me a better understanding of what I’m in for.

After that appointment, I had another appointment with my family doctor here in town. I wanted to get her take on the lymph node dilemma—take them out or leave them in. I thought that she might be a bit more committal with her recommendation, but she really wasn’t. “It’s your choice,” she said after explaining some pros and cons. She suggested that it might be of value to talk with an oncologist who deals with prostate patients, and I may take her up on that suggestion. But that leads to another issue which I’ll talk about in a minute.

Needless to say, the events of the morning didn’t exactly put me in a cheerful mood for our Christmas lunch with our team at work. Or for the rest of the afternoon, for that matter. Especially when I read, “…as surgical procedures go, radical prostatectomy remains one of the most delicate, intricate, and flat-out difficult to perform correctly.”

I’ve learned through this whole process that you really do have to educate yourself and be your own advocate. But for those of you who really know me, you know that I can take educating myself to an extreme. At some point, I’m going to have to stop and just take that leap of faith.

But there are still some questions that need to be asked and answered, and I’ll do that. Will I ever get comfortable with the notion of having to go through this? Nope. I need to identify the point at which I can follow the book’s advice:

“Now we’re at a crossroads. Educating yourself is just half the battle—the half you can control. The other half involves a leap of faith: You must find a doctor you can believe in, and then you must be able to accept that doctor’s advice.”

“…Release the burden from your shoulders. Let go and allow the doctor to take over. Spend your energy and strength following that advice, recovering from the treatment, and beating this disease.”

I think I’m getting closer. But I also know that I have until the day before the surgery to change my mind.

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An update: Neither Dr. Indy nor anyone from his staff has yet to contact me with answers to my questions from last Tuesday, with the orders for the pre-surgery physical tests, or the DVD and information packet concerning the procedure.

Okay. I know it’s really the 21st Century, but I finally joined the 20th Century this afternoon. “Huh?” you ask.

Well, you know what they say about old dogs and new tricks… I finally took a couple of my CD’s and ripped some songs from them in MP3 format to upload onto my phone. (Yes, I know… I’m the last guy on the planet to convert to pure digital music.)

Having some tunes available over the next few weeks will be a good distraction.

Speaking of distractions, you would think that I might have turned to television to take me away from my thinking about cancer. Interestingly, that’s not been the case at all. In fact, if I’ve watched more than four hours of television since Day 1, I’d be surprised (aside from listening to the news and weather as I’m getting ready in the mornings).

I took a break from reading “Surviving Prostate Cancer” today. While it’s been very educational, I can only take so much of it at once. I may read a few sections tonight before going to bed.

Tomorrow morning, I head to the urology center to learn how to control my bladder sphincter through biofeedback a session. In other words, I’m being potty trained again. 🙂 Hey, if it helps prevent me from peeing in my pants after the surgery, I’m all for it.

My refrigerator is in need of restocking to get me through the short week, so I need to run off to the grocery store. Plus, you would think that I was smart enough to throw a load of laundry in while I was ripping songs, but noooo… So when I get back, at least one load is going in the wash.

That’s my Sunday!

Another good night’s sleep had me sleeping in until 9:00 AM this morning. Loved it. 🙂 And I didn’t wake up like I did yesterday, and that was good, too.

Once I did get motivated, I was off to the bank and barber shop to get my hair cut for the holidays. My barber is living with prostate cancer, but he’s 73 and has chosen the watchful waiting. Besides, I’m not sure he could stand another surgery. He’s had a kidney removed because he had kidney cancer; lung cancer; and a heart by-pass. It’s good to see that he’s survived all that and is still in business.

When I got home, I reorganized one of my closets after years of just putting more and more stuff into it. I may work on the dresser in the guest room tomorrow in anticipation of my sister staying with me for a while. She’ll need someplace to put her clothes.

And this evening was spent reading more in my new book for nearly four hours. I’m about halfway through it now and obviously took a break to update the blog.

So that’s about it for this Saturday evening…