Monday, August 31, 2009

HOT FLASH!!! Half of South Carolina is Gay!!!

Check out this link to Mike Rogers' website today. He's officially outing South Carolina's Lieutenant Governor, Andre Bauer.

Apparently it's no secret that the President Pro Tem of the SC Senate, Glenn McConnell, is also gay.

And everyone over the age of 7 with an IQ over 100, which automatically rules out most of the citizens of SC, knows that Senator Lindsey Graham is officially "light in the loafers" (as was Mark Foley, another fine example of Southern Manhood and Good Old-Timey Down-Home Pederasty).

Jeebus, are the voters of SC complete idiots or just in total denial? We know all their politicians are queer as folk.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Prostate Update

I saw my urologist last p.m. He confirmed what I already suspected, that the cancer is localized to the prostate and it will have to come out.

Good news. Bad news. But news.

Now the ball is in my court. He was solicitous and concerned. He answered my questions truthfully. He assured me that he wouldn't feel "two-timed" if I snuck around and saw other doctors behind his back. In fact, he encouraged me to make appointments and to get other opinions.

I've been given names of doctors at New York Hospital-Presbyterian, Memorial Sloan-Kettering and Mount Sinai in New York and at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

Some of them use the robot, others do not, preferring instead to do it the old fashioned way, through a 3" incision.

My guy at home in NJ has done 600 removals in his career. He does them at a non-teaching hospital in New Brunswick, NJ (St. Peters). His rationale is that the operation is so delicate he doesn't want to have surrender any portion of it to resident surgeons, i.e. "rank amateurs." I liked that.

There's a good 10-15% chance that post-removal I'll still have to have some sort of follow-up therapy, probably radiation. Hey! That leaves a good 85-90% chance that I WON'T.

I'll be incontinent for awhile. A month, maybe two. As for "male potency" (don't you love the euphemisms we come up with for "hard ons"?), well, it'll be about as good as it is now within 6 months. I can wait 6 months. It's already been years.

Ordinarily I'd be on the phone this morning, rounding up appointments, arranging for time off, coordinating everything. But the weather is crappy, and I need a good scary movie... "Ultimate Destination" would do.

I'll deal with cancer next week. Promise.

p.s. But be assured that I know this ... I am loved. A lot. And that is going to make all the difference in the world.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

His Name is Roger....

A friend of mine sent me a link via email today and I want to share it with you.

There is a certain film critic of reknown, from Chicago, who blogs. Fair enough. What I didn't know is that he, too, is in recovery.

His name is Roger E. and [click here] is the entry which I find truly inspiring,


and on a lighter note, here's a birther, or teabagger, or Blue Dawg Democrat, or some other kind of illiterate douchebag, trying to explain healthcare reform:

[VIDEO DELETED DUE TO EMBEDDED ADVERTISING BY DOUCHEBAG ON-LINE SO-CALLED UNIVERSITY NAMED AFTER A CITY IN ARIZONA]

Monday, August 17, 2009

Prostate Cancer

Before I left town on my last vacation my urologist had me drop by his office one night for a "minor procedure." It was to biopsy my prostate.

My PSA readings (a blood test) had been varying for years but recently, in the last year, they had been consistently hovering above the number generally recognized to be worrisome by the medical profession.

He took his samples (you don't even want to know about how he gets them, suffice it to say you have zero dignity during the procedure) and I went, gaily, off to the beach.

Well, last Thursday I had my follow-up with him. His face a mask of concern, he told me that it was cancer. 60% of the samples were infused with cancer cells over 90% of their surfaces.

I have no idea how others handle this, but I do know how one person I know handled it -- my ex had prostate cancer and had his prostate removed in 1991. They filleted him like a fish to do it. Afterwards he had to inject his penis with a syringe full of something in order to get a half-assed erection. He did not take it well. Sex was a lot... everything to him. I might as well have been a hole in the mattress, for all the (BITTER, PARTY OF ONE)... but I digress.

Not that I'm exactly worried about that. I haven't had sex with another human being in ... a decade? Two? Well, it's been a long time, and nobody is beating my door down and, to be honest, I have been deliberately NOT looking lustfully at anyone since 1984 or so.

So I'm not really worried about that.

No... it's the pain I fear. I remember how much pain the ex was in. It was bad.

My RN friends assure me that the pain is much more manageable and bearable than the gastric bypass was last year.

That's good news, I suppose.

But what about AFTER the removal? What then? Will I have to have chemo? Radiation? Will I be incontinent for the the rest of my life? Or even a month?

There's a new machine, Da Vinci by name, which is a surgeon-controlled robotic octopus which, according to the hype, does all of it's work through one teeny hole in your gut and which does NOT damage, the way old-fashioned surgery does, the delicate nerve bundle which surrounds the prostate and which contributes to a male's intense joy at the moment of ecstacy.

Shit. Look, I'm scared. It's cancer and I'm scared. I wasn't scared at quadruple-bypass surgery or bilateral endarterectomies or even gastric bypass -- but this time I'm scared.

I need help. Gods, yours and anyone else's who is willing.

Oh, and yes, I plan to not drink over it.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

I'M BAAAAAaaaacccckkkkk .... with Jason Mraz.

In my dreams.

But I am back from the Delaware shore. And I threw my back out in the process of unloading the car after a nearly picture-perfect week at the beach. Sigh.

All the news that's fit to print mostly has to do with Wingnuts, Freepers, Teabaggers and Birthers gettin' their knickers in a twist over the proposed healthcare reform legislation (Obama Death Panels passing sentence on everyone over the age of 30, etc.) WTF? I say leave the Death Panels where they are now, at the insurance companies which routinely make life or death decisions and deny people all kinds of treatment. Assholes.

Rather than joining that fray, I found this little item on Andy Towle's site. I happen to be in love with Jason Mraz and his cute little hat and his cute little bod and his cute little voice and his cute little ass.

Take a look at this and see if you don't agree with me... for a "straight guy" he sure is pretty gay-friendly.