Going for the gold doesn't have to be a pain in the ass

Nov. 11, 2016 -- Veteran's Day.
Hi, Kiddo.

This afternoon I acquired some gold nuggets. Tiny nuggets. Three tiny nuggets. Too small to get me scanned with a wand at the airport, but big enough for the right equipment to hone in on, when I get my radiation treatments next year. The picture below shows where it happened.

An ultrasound machine, and the gurney where my prostate became a tiny bit more valuable.

It kind of amuses me that my blood pressure was above 150 over 70 before we started, because there was almost no discomfort.

That  big screen in the photo appears to be the ultrasound display. Using it to monitor his procedure, my urologist stood behind me and slipped this probe into the place where the sun doesn't shine (although other sources of light do, for instance when they perform a sigmoidoscopy. I know, because I watched the screen as that snake went looking for polyps several years ago.)

I lay in the fetal position on the gurney facing away, so I didn't get to watch the display. Afterward, when the medical staff left and I was getting dressed, I took the photo, noting that the screen says the needle he used on me was about 1.5 inches long. I'm not sure what that means, because I never saw the instrument.

Before he salted the mine, he probed around, causing a couple little stinging senations. I thought that was when he placed the gold beads, but that was probably just the numbing shot.

The most unpleasant part of the whole procedure was imagining what he was doing to me. But before I knew it, the implantation was over. Previously, for biopsies, I had waited in anticipation, listening to a device build up pressure before there was that sudden pulse as the needle puffed through my intestine wall and into the prostate to grab a tiny snippet of tissue. For the minor biopsies, for which I was awake, there were eight of those attention-getting moments. Today there was no pulse, just a little bit of probing, and I couldn't even tell for sure when the implants were occurring.

Afterward I went to a different building through another set of bowels -- this time the labyrinthine bowels of the Group Health basement chambers to a separate building where I underwent an MRI to determine whether the beads my urologist placed were properly situated. After a brief ride through the doughnut,  I was assured the procedure worked and I wouldn't have to go back upstairs for another try.

The next step -- which occurs next week, is another MRI to make sure they are staying put, followed by a tiny bit of tattooing at my waist, to provide another set of reference points for aiming the radiation equipment when it comes time to zap my tumor(s).

Love,
Dad

Cancer--The Crab