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    They Took My Prostate: Cancer-Loss-Hope
    They Took My Prostate: Cancer-Loss-Hope
    They Took My Prostate: Cancer-Loss-Hope
    Ebook73 pages1 hour

    They Took My Prostate: Cancer-Loss-Hope

    By JP Mac

    5/5

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    About this ebook

    "Sir, Your Prostate Cancer Awaits" 
    The biopsy had spoken.


     Diagnosed with cancerous prostate tumors, a broke, unemployed animation writer focuses on the humorous as he struggles to comprehend his carcinoma, select between surgery and radiation, and land a new health care provider all in less than two months.

     A hilarious, rollicking autobiography, author JP Mac chronicles bureaucratic bungles, medical complications and a difficult post-treatment future. A funny, pull-no-punches memoir, this short hopeful essay is a perfect read for guys and their families facing the number one cancer among men.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCornerstone Media
    Release dateFeb 26, 2020
    ISBN9780991251995
    They Took My Prostate: Cancer-Loss-Hope
    Author

    JP Mac

    Mac’s short fiction has appeared in print and online, most recently in the anthology Horror: California. An Emmy-Award winning TV animation writer, JP Mac (as John P. McCann) contributed to shows such as Animaniacs, Freakazoid, Pinky and the Brain, Scooby Doo Mysteries and Kung Fu Panda. Mac is a military history buff, a former marathon coach, and a fan of Turner Classic Movies. He lives in the hills above Los Angeles with his wife, and various stuffed animals in lieu of pets. Mac is currently writing a pair of horror novellas, in addition to book two of his Hallow Mass trilogy.

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    • 5/5
      Dear JP Mac,

      You are funny, with a sick sense of humor. What makes it okay is this subject benefits from twistedness. I suppose it goes with being an animator. You get laughs out of sly takes on things people take for granted. But don't get me wrong -- I don't take my groin or crown jewels for granted. I don't want anybody monkeying around with my junk, you know? I did not think I would laugh while reading this book. You fooled me. I laughed a lot. Uncomfortably. I squirmed in my chair while I read your descriptions of various diminishing experiences. Especially the ones involving anticipating urine, experiencing urine, and the aftermath of the same. And I laughed, knowing that I had just about chosen to undergo a radical robotic prostatectomy via Da Vinci. I can't wait to get over it! For writing this book, I owe you thanks. It fills a gap left by my doctor, a logical and scientific guy who cleverly gives assigned pamphlet reading to minimize the talking his heart cannot allow him to do. The empathy stuff, you know? "They Took My Prostate" filled a gap in my knowledge that friends have not yet been able to do. I anticipate filling the rest with prayer.
    • 5/5
      Learned a lot and laughed out loud while doing it. The book is well written and full of useful information for a newbie trying to navigate the prostate cancer journey.

    Book preview

    They Took My Prostate - JP Mac

    They Took My Prostate

    Cancer ◊ Loss ◊ Hope

    JP Mac

    TABLE OF CONTENTS

    Dedication

    Mark of the COBRA

    Prostate Before Science

    Race to Pre-Op

    We Control You

    Man Without a Prostate

    Tuesday Bloody Tuesday

    September Daze

    A Thousand Points of Urine

    The Road Back

    Copyright

    Update

    Resources

    Addendum and Acknowledgements

    About the Author

    A Note to Our Readers

    Dedication

    Nothing is more dangerous to men than a sudden change in fortune.

    — Quintillian

    Mark of the COBRA

    Cringing in discomfort, I stared at the wall, curled up on the examination table like a possum under a shrub. Tissue samples were being harvested from my prostate. Earlier, I’d received a Novocain injection, but the doctor must’ve bought a bad drum from Amazon because . . . I. felt. everything.

    With a noise like a mousetrap closing—whap!—the biopsy needle would snag a tissue sample and I would squirm. In addition, a trans-rectal camera had been inserted up my butt like a plumber’s snake into a drain.

    Operating this trans-rectal camera/biopsy needle was my urologist, Dr. Vaughn Trachmann. Around my age, early 60s, with more salt than pepper in his black hair, he had sad brown eyes, heavy-lidded, sleepy—as if he were perpetually up late. Snipping his tissue samples, Trachmann kept up a distracting patter about an NPR radio program called A Prairie Home Companion.

    For those fuzzy on male anatomy, the prostate is a walnut-sized gland located at the bladder outlet and the junction of the urinary and reproductive tracts. During a routine physical, this is the organ a doctor checks for enlargement when he sticks a finger up a patient’s butt. (After which both parties pretend nothing happened.) Situated at a vital biological crossroad, the prostate observes urine and semen exit a man’s body without comment or judgment.

    Dr. Trachmann said, Your prostate appears normal-sized.

    I guess that’s good.

    Whap!

    I squirmed more, said oww again, and wriggled like a flat worm on a slide, none of which helped.

    Trachmann continued, I loved that guy who did the sounds for the show. What was his name?

    I don’t know.

    Whap!

    Owww, man!

    Prostate gland cells manufacture a protein called prostate specific antigen. (Initially, I wasn’t sure what this protein did, suspecting a form of biological busy work.) An antigen is a toxin that issues an immune response, especially in the production of antibodies. Think of an immune response as a burglar alarm that should be investigated. Had a rodent scuttled past the motion sensor, or was there a thief?

    Trachmann said, Tom Keith, now I remember. He’s dead now, but he made some amazing effects.

    How many more samples?

    Close to the end now.

    Whap!

    Shit.

    Elevated PSA levels can indicate cancer. During a physical six weeks earlier, a blood test revealed my PSA was borderline high at 4.3, up from 3.2 the previous year. The increase earned me a referral to an urologist. A few weeks later, following a second blood test at Trachmann’s office, my PSA jumped again to 6.3. This new level qualified me for the biopsy. And because prostate cancer could be multifocal, meaning multiple tumors might pop up like crab grass, numerous tissue samples from the prostate periphery were needed to pinpoint any skulking malignancy.

    Writhing on the examination table, I hated the whole procedure. When would this miserable biopsy end? Sharp stabbing pains rendered cancer as inconsequential and remote as the icy surface of Europa.

    Whap!

    I gritted my teeth, This is really bad.

    Now Butch Thompson, there was a piano player.

    Whap!

    Come on.

    Close to the end now.

    You’ve said that twice.

    Whap!

    At last Trachmann departed the examination room, carting along a dozen tissue samples. A cute nurse with black horn-rimmed glasses said I could get dressed, leaving me a sheet of post-procedure instructions. Alone in the room, I lay there in my ass-less gown with a throbbing rectal pain. Sliding off the examination table, I glanced back at the white surgical mat, covered in drips and blobs of my blood.

    Dazed, I felt like a young actress leaving Harvey Weinstein’s hotel room. On a counter top, I spied a roll of paper towels. Tearing off several sheets, I fashioned a manpon, wedging the papers against my bloody butt, then pulled up my underwear. After dressing, I left the office, realizing I now walked differently.

    Outside the medical center, morning traffic zipped along Burbank Boulevard. In a post-biopsy daze, I didn’t notice the late July heat. I concentrated on negotiating the sidewalk in my new shuffle. In recalling this unique movement, no comparison springs to mind except that it mitigated rectal pain. Pedestrians passed, aloof, indifferent, this being Los Angeles and home to far weirder things than a funny-walking old guy.

    Thank God, it was over.

    Carefully lowering myself behind the wheel of

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