Flu – Dan's Journey through Prostate Cancer

I’ve been debating whether to write this post but figured that I’ve never shied away from sharing the gory details of the total prostate cancer experience. So if you don’t want to read about my latest adventure with incontinence, you can check out the trip report of my trip to Death Valley last week.

In fact, the issue began as a result of my trip to Death Valley.

After four days of standing in the middle of the desert pretty much solo the entire time, I returned home Wednesday evening. Thursday morning, I can off to the clinic for my PSA test (it took 7 minutes and 38 seconds from check-in to walking out the door). But by Thursday afternoon, I was feeling a bit wonky.

By Thursday night, I was down for the count with a full-blown head cold/flu. I was both baffled by how I contracted it, and annoyed that I had. It had been several years since I’ve had a cold or flu.

Unfortunately, one of the symptoms that hit me hard and caused the incontinence issues was a nagging tickle in the back of my throat that had me coughing pretty consistently and, in many cases, pretty intensely. It sucked.

It sucked because coughing is perhaps the greatest trigger for my stress incontinence. The harder I cough, the more I leak.

I wear Depend Shields in my daily life, and I can get by with one or two pads a day. But by the weekend, the coughing and resultant leaking exceeded their capacity. I had one coughing fit that had me fill the pad, overflow, and soak my jeans. Not fun. Through the weekend and into early this week, I was going through multiple pads a day and doing several loads of laundry.

I toyed with the idea of running to the store to get Depend Guards, the pads with more absorbency and capacity, but I didn’t want to risk embarrassing myself in the middle of Aisle 12 at the grocery store. Plus, I was probably as contagious as Typhoid Mary, so that wouldn’t have been a good thing, either.

I was taking some cold/flu medicine that helped reduce the cough—the root cause of my issue—and I just rode out the storm for a few more days. Today, a week after this all kicked in, I’m back to my good ol’ self getting by with the occasional drip and dribble.

The lessons learned for me are to keep the cough medicine on hand to help reduce the root cause, and to keep a supply of Depend Guards on hand to do a better job of controlling the mess.

Now you know why I may have been hesitant to share this. But, hey, it’s for educational purposes, right?

On a related note, I was successful in getting my appointment to review my PSA results moved to an earlier date. It’s now 18 February 2025 (four weeks is better than four months). I’m okay with that.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock the last two weeks, you already know that southern California has been ablaze with wildfires. Luckily, up until this point, they have stayed clear of San Diego for the most part. Until today.

This little gem popped up about 6 miles / 10 km from my house this afternoon:

*View of the Border Fire on Otay Mountain taken from the vacant lot down the street from my house.*

It’s grown to about 600 acres / 240 hectares in about six hours, and we’re expecting high Santa Ana winds this evening. It’s in a very mountainous area, and air crews have been working the scene all afternoon. Luckily, it’s adjacent to a large reservoir, so there’s plenty of water for the helicopters to access. We also have rain in the forecast for the weekend for the first time in months (San Diego has had the driest start to the wet season since they began keeping records in 1850. We’ve had only 0.14 inch / 3 mm of rain since 1 July 2024.)

Of course, I’m concerned and I’ve made preparations to leave if need be. But given the location, the fact that the reservoir is between me and the fire, and the prevailing winds are keeping the smoke south of me, I’m hopeful that my neighborhood will be unaffected.

I’ll keep everyone updated over the next day or two.

Be well.

Header image: Courtyard at The Ranch at Death Valley National Park, California

This is the famous Jet d’Eau in Geneva, Switzerland. It shoots 500 liters / 130 gallons of water per second 140 meters/460 feet into the air. Keep that image in mind.

On Thursday, 14 November, I went and got my obligatory seasonal flu shot—a necessity working in a hospital. It was no biggie.

Friday afternoon, though, I was feeling a bit wonky—a bit of a chill and general tiredness—but it only lasted a brief while. I went to an event for work later that evening and did just fine.

Saturday morning was fine, too. I threw my camera in the car and I was headed out to take some photos. Before I got out of town, though, the chills and wonky feeling returned, a little more intense than the previous day, so I bailed on the photography and went back home for a quiet evening of rest just in case something might be taking hold.

Sunday was fine, but Monday at work, a sore throat and headache kicked in full-bore, and the next thing you know, I’m curled up in bed at home Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

The bug had me trying to cough up my toenails for the better part of those three days. And each time I coughed, there was a jet (see photo above) of something other than Eau coming out of my nether regions. Back into incontinence pads I went. And I went through pads like, well, pee through a man without a prostate. Not fun.

To add insult to injury, somewhere in one of those cough-up-your-toenails coughing fits, I must have moved one of my herniated lumbar discs around. (Old injury from 1986.) Now, in addition to jetting pee into my pad with each cough, I simultaneously send a bolt of lightning/pain down my right leg.

Let’s just say it’s not been the best of weeks. (Yeah, I know. Dial 1-800-Waaaahh!)

The cold is slowly relenting, and I’m sure it will be behind me by Thanksgiving. The nerve in my leg? That’s another story…

I’ve been pretty lucky with my back over the years just by being very conscientious of what my limits and capabilities are. About 2005, though, things went bonkers with it.

It would take me 10 minutes to put a sock on my foot and another 10 minutes to put the shoe on, and the only position I was relatively comfortable in was standing. A series of visits to a physical therapist (including traction), did nothing to improve the situation.

I went off to a Harley-Davidson-riding female neurosurgeon to see what could be done. We did all the scans, and she found that a piece of my disc had broken off and was the culprit that was bouncing on the nerve to my leg. She refused to do surgery (risk > reward), but tried using a steroid injected into the spine to dissolve the piece of disc that was floating around. It worked and I haven’t had any serious problem since then.

Historically, when my back does flare up, it tends to resolve itself on its own in a matter of days to a few weeks. This feels a bit different, though. It’s impacting my gait; my right leg lights up when I try to take a normal step, but if I take about two-thirds of a step, there isn’t as much pain.

Moral of the story: Don’t get a flu shot.

Okay. Disregard that. Get your flu shot.

This is the first time I’ve had a reaction to a flu shot like this and, who knows, it may not have been the flu shot at all. It may have been just pure coincidence that I caught the bug around the same time I got the shot. I do work around sick people in a hospital and I take public transit to work, after all. Plenty of opportunity for virus transmission.

Time to pound down a shot of cough medicine and call it a night.

The real moral to the story: Keep plenty of pads on hand. You’ll never know when you’ll need them to tame a jet.