Prostate Cancer Diary Day Two (of too many?)

Yesterday's trip to Sainsbury's did not yield a suitable physical diary in which to record my "prostate cancer journey." But I did enjoy a couple of eggs on toast and a decaf flat white. I did not make a decision about which prostate cancer treatment path to pursue.

Sunday 29 March, 2026

Prostate identified in digital rectal exam (DRE)

I always take a little time on Sunday mornings to reflect. It's a lingering echo from growing up in a churchgoing family. A regular topic of that reflection is gratitude. I am truly grateful for how fortunate I have been in life, and how to have had a life full of many wonderul experiences and people, a life that has lasted over seven decades so far. 

All of which helps when you have to face the fact that there are cancer cells growing deep inside your body. Cells that could reach your spine and other organs and eventually kill you. Cells that are not going to go away without some fairly serious trauma. In the case of prostate cancer like mine that trauma is either:

A. Surgical removal or all or part of the prostate - an organ about which many of us humans remain relatively ignorant for most of our lives. (See diagram for location, relative size, etc.)

OR

B. A two-pronged attack through hormone manipulation and radiotherapy. The latter uses high-energy electromagnetic radiation to "zap" (target and damage) body tissue, specifically and hopefully, the cancer cells in the prostate.

The odds that either A or B will put the cancer into remission (no longer active) are about the same. Unfortunately, both A and B can have some serious side effects like incontinence, loss of erection and/or ejaculation, and more. I will delve into these in a future post.

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Daily Notes

Music: Sherpa, by Angine de Poutrine
Nutrients: I sauteed a head of broccoli with some tomatoes, sliced and fried the stem. Delicious. No need to take the spermidine capsules :-)
Meds and such: Daily Pills ✔ G&T Tonic ✔ CBD ✘ Banana ✔
Terminology:  

Prostate Cancer Diary Day One (of how many?)

UK Prostate Cancer statistics from NHS via Prostate Cancer UK

When I woke up today I found I was thinking about prostate cancer treatment; not just my prostate cancer treatment, about which I must make a decision in the next few days, but prostate cancer in general. More specifically, my mind was going over the timing of that treatment and as I put on my dressing gown and headed for the stairs, the term lackadaisical came to mind, What a strange a word that is. I should look it up in the OED. 

Saturday 28 March, 2026

But when I got downstairs, I remembered something else: I need to reconfigure the WiFi. Most of our devices work fine, except the printer, and I need the printer to make paper copies of the latest correspondence from the urologist. 

I didn't fix the printer this yesterday, when I realized there was a problem, because my partner, CC, was using the Internet at the time. That would not have been a big deal six or seven years ago, but these days CC suffers from chronic fatigue and is cognitively impaired due to two brain haemorrhages and an insidious genetic condition. She also sleeps until nine in the morning most days and so stuff like reconfiguring the WiFi router is best done then. 

Today, by the time I made my cereal and coffee and sat down to catch up on email and news, I could already hear CC getting up to go to the bathroom. When that happens I listen for her to walk back to her room because, if she is not planning to go back to sleep, she will typically call downstairs to ask for a beverage. Today she requested a ginger ale, not the usual tea or hot chocolate. I took her a glass of GA and decided to do the WiFi tomorrow.

Which was fine because I need to write down the big idea I had when I woke up this morning thinking about the days that have passed between the various stages of my prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment. The idea? Write a diary! 

Yes, I know writing a diary is not an original idea. Indeed, it would be natural to expect that a human in their eighth decade, one who has been writing stuff for seven of those decades, an educated chap who for many years earned a living from his writing, would be no stranger to keeping a diary. Yet somehow I've managed to get this far without keeping track of my thoughts any actions on a daily basis. 

Of course, as a true writer, an old school writer, the thought "must write a diary" was not immediately followed by the act of putting pen to paper. No, my first impulse was to tell myself I needed to buy a diary to write in. Pretty sure I've seen A5-size diaries at Sainsbury's. So maybe the next step on this journey is drive there, grab a diary and an early lunch, and ponder my prostate cancer treatment options.

Given the stage I am at, technically known as Grade Group 3, Gleason 7 (4+3), organ-confined, the basic choice is between surgery to remove the prostate, or a combination of radiotherapy and hormone therapy to kill off the cancerous cells and the testosterone on which they feed.

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Daily Notes

Prostate cancer (PCa)
under a microscope

Music: Medicine Show by Big Audio Dynamite
Nutrients: Did not find a suitable diary at Sainsbury's, but picked up a nice roasted chicken. 
Meds and such: Daily Pills ✔ G&T Tonic ✔ Spermidine✔ CBD ✘ Banana ✔
Terminology:  OED = Oxford English Dictionary, specifically complete version, which is 1000 pages long because it details the history off all English words. You can access the basics online, but the gory details are firewalled. Today I realized my annual subscription has lapsed. It's £100 per year for Brits, which is a bloody cheek because it's only $100 for Americans. That's currently about a 25% discount. I could maybe VPN my way to paying dollars, but not today.

On the edge of my home town: drone's eye view of Coventry's west side

Using drones to make movies and take pictures can be a lot of fun. It offers new ways in which to see our world, ways previously limited to birds and flying insects. I took up drone photography as a hobby last December (2025). I recorded this footage in January and added a bit of sound and text.

This clip gives a 360-degree view from about 30 meters above where we live, on the west side of the city of Coventry, in England. The neighbourhood we live in is known as Mount Nod because that is what it was called long before there were houses here. You can see it near the middle of this map from 1895.

Think before you park illegally

Here's a quick reminder that some parking rules are made for very valid reasons. Can you see the harm caused by this driver? Scroll down for a closer look.

The driver of this vehicle not only parked on the grass verge adjacent to a double-yellow line, they parked over the telecomm access points for our building. This prevented a long awaited fibre optic install for a 40-employee charity that could provide even my care for the people of Coventry and Warwickshire if it had the full fibre business broadband access promised by BT back in March.

Here's just one of the access points this person blocked.

They managed to block three in a row!

And this was not an isolated incident.
(Pure coincidence that both violators were driving BMW?)

Guess which car has an expired MOT?