Month 14 - New Year!

Happy New Year!  Hopefully, this year will be a bit better than last.

The holidays were generally good for me with the exception of catching a stomach bug that was going around.  Let's just say that stress incontinence was the least of my worries for about 30 hours beginning at 6:00 AM on Monday, 26 December.  At least mine waited to kick in.  My sister and brother-in-law suffered through it beginning Christmas Eve, and my nephew's step son fell victim to the bug on Christmas day.

Later this week I get my blood drawn for my one-year PSA test.  I'll get the results on 19 January, so keep your fingers crossed.  I hope that I won't get as worked up about this round of tests as I did for the six month test back in August.  I'm sure that I will for a little while.  I mean, really, if the PSA comes back showing something, then that means the cancer is elsewhere--bones or organs--and that will be much more problematic to treat.

I'm beginning to think that I'm about as good as I'm going to get when it comes to the stress incontinence.  I just haven't noticed any real improvements since the last posting or two.  I'll talk to the surgeon about it when I get my results. 

It's not that it's all that bad...  But it's enough of a nuisance to frustrate me.  Somedays are nearly perfectly dry; and then there's the off day where a pad might have been needed.  Unfortunately, I can't predict how the day will go.  It just happens.

So that's about it.  Look for a special post next week with the PSA results.

Month 13 - Lucky Number?

So I'm sitting in San Diego International Airport hammering this out as I wait for my flight back to Indiana.  Bah-humbug! 

I had this week of vacation scheduled for nearly two months, but no real destination planned.  At the last minute, I was able to get some tickets and decided to head back to the land of never-ending sunshine.

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I read an interesting article this week that talked about a new program to increase prostate cancer screening and awareness among men by training barbers to talk about the topic while giving haircuts.  That's an interesting approach and, if it gets a couple of guys to get checked out, then all the better.

BIOLOGY AHEAD

The last month has been good for me physically.  The stress incontinence doesn't seem to be as bad when I sneeze of cough, although when I feel a sneeze or cough coming on, I do my best to tighten those pelvic floor muscles in advance, and that seems to help.  I also seem to do better at controlling things while sitting; when standing or walking, it becomes more difficult and I'm likely to leak a little more.

As far as sexual function is concerned, I can feel things wanting to come back to life without chemical assistance (Cialis), but there's still a long way to go. 

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Things I'm thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day:

Family, friends, and being cancer-free.

'Nuff said.

Happy Thanksgiving!