The night before the biopsy

It is 10:39 p.m. on Wednesday evening, July 11, 2018, and I’m babysitting some Magic Mineral Broth, a recipe from Rebecca Katz’s “The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen”. The broth has been simmering now for over two hours, and, honestly, I’m sitting up with it for longer than the recipe says I need to, because I don’t want to go to bed. I know better, I know we have to be up exceptionally early to be at the doctor’s office by 6:45 a.m. to prep for M’s biopsy, which is scheduled for 8:45 a.m. I know that sitting here drinking red wine and telling these pages how I feel is going to make for a short night and a horrible morning. I know this. But the wine and the words are my comfort. Because I already know the biopsy will tell us nothing good, and might tell us something worse.

Yesterday was M’s appointment with the urologist, Dr. Hudnall. The upshot: M. has prostate cancer, even without a biopsy, that much is clear.

“Look, you’re smart people,” Dr. Hudnall began, and from there: It’s still speculation until the biopsy’s done, he said (I’m paraphrasing), but between the elevated PSA and the CT scan, it’s prostate cancer.

He asked if we had immediate questions, so I asked, “Has it spread to his bones?”

“Yes.”

Other snippets/highlights/lowlights/stuff:

1. Dr. H did a prostate exam on M right there in front of me, before I could ask if M would like privacy or not, it just–poof!–happened really fast. I guess the good news is that everything seemed to be happening so fast that there was no time for it to be weird or uncomfortable, and also, whatever walls might still exist between M and me are being torn down in short order.
2. M is too young to have prostate cancer. Dr. H pretty much looked bewildered the entire time he was with us, like, “What the FUCK are you even doing here? You shouldn’t be here”. But because we were there–because M was there at the tender age of 44–Dr. H told us that his assessment is that this is an aggressive form of prostate cancer.
3. Dr. H had no shame, no puritan sensibilities WHATSOEVER. He had M drop his pants for the impromptu prostate exam, and then keep them off, down around his ankles, for a testicle exam, and, while Dr. H was feeling up my husband’s jewels, Dr. H had me help out by observing the naked skin on M’s low back/upper butt and sharing whether I’d ever noticed how it looks mottled. I told Dr. H that no…the mottling didn’t look quite right, but these had been some crazy months, and M had been applying heat to his back on the regular. Good news! The mottling of skin color is consistent with M constantly applying heat to his back, so while we may be battling cancer on multiple fronts, at least it’s not in M’s butt skin.

My head is swimming. It’s the wine. It’s the lack of sleep. It’s the stress. I’m not an early riser in the mornings. Anything before 7 a.m. is barbaric. But more an more, I find myself wide eyed and restless by about 6:30 a.m. And today, I couldn’t even force myself to lie still and try to doze. I had to get up and go do something before I lost my fucking mind.

So I walked. I needed to think and not think and ask the Universe and Jesus and my dead grandparents and M’s dead grandma and all the saints and anyone else who happened to show up in my weird pantheon, just what the FUCK I’m supposed to do.

What do I say to M? Shit like, “Hey, babe, don’t you worry, it’s gonna be FINE”…well, that’s a lie and we ALL know it, so…what?

How do I act? I didn’t hug my husband until this morning. Is this cruel or insensitive or…what? The fact is that he’s in pain, sensitive to the touch. And he just got a cancer bomb diagnosis exploded into his face. For that matter, so did I. So do we hug it out? Did I miss an opportunity here? Am I a bad wife?

As I walked this morning, I thought about this and about 500 other things at a rapid pace. But mostly, I wanted to privately ugly cry while actively moving about. I know how weird that must sound, but sitting in a room, imprisoned by too many thoughts, and knowing I need to find a release…that is torture. To be able to step out the front door and MOVE. And ugly cry. That’s much better. I only stopped once in the midst of ugly crying to fake-tie my shoe while someone drove by. Ugly crying is terrifying for others to see, so, you know, no need to pull the neighbors into it.