Lucky For Now

Pointless to post my medical report up. Even Grace, being a nurse couldn't figure out much of it. It was filled with medical jargon, probably some urology codes to keep outsiders clueless. The best scenario I could ask for was a complete let off, a mistake perhaps. No such luck. I did however received the second best possible outlook by the looks of it.


The first thing the doc told me was, "You have cancer." Thanks man. Fortunately she went on telling me it was a low grade one. The team didn't think it was invasive (at the moment) and saw no need for further standard follow up treatments such as chemotherapy or radiation. That was music to any cancer patient's ears, even though any of us would be reminded the high reoccurrence of such cancer. Predictably so, she did exactly that and I was told to go back for a cystoscopy ordeal three months later. And if there are nothing found down there, another one three months later. And another. And another. For the rest of my life......


Nonetheless, it was time to count my blessings. I'll tell you why. When I first saw my own ultrasound slides, which looked similar to the below;

No, this isn't my scan though
I knew I was in trouble even without going through a CT scan which I was ordered to do by the GP. Though the results of the CT scan didn't come as a total surprise to me, it was left me gutted. At that point in time, there was no telling how bad could that be. I could be on the brink of an explosive metastasis if I was at the wrong side of luck.


I took the trouble to ask the doctor to draw me a diagram to show my condition as accurately as she could. It turned out that there was one being done in my medical file already. It looked similar to this:



I thanked the doctor after getting a glimpse. I knew I had a massive let off this time. The position of my tumor obviously restricted my urine flow bad enough for me to notice something was wrong with me. Should my tumor occurred at another position, any other position, it is probable that I may still have a tumor within, undetected. 


Should that be so, by the time I realised something wasn't right going on, the tumor would have grown to an invasive stage or worse. At T4 as we could see, I would have been in deep, deep shit. To be honest, even I first peed pools of fresh red viscous blood in Singapore, it didn't feel painful. So didn't subsequent rare occasions where lesser extent of blood traces was observed in the urine. Despite the tumor blocking my urine flow awkwardly, nothing else felt otherwise amiss. In fact a urinal tract infection, enlarged prostate or bladder stones would have been a much painful experience.


So it wasn't far fetch so say if the tumor was positioned elsewhere, it might still be growing inside without my awareness. That perhaps is one reason why cancer is such a frightening disease. You may not even know you have a cancer problem until a very late stage. 


Denise told me she thought it was not my diet but my lifestyle back in Singapore that caused this. She could be right. After all, the fateful Monday morning where I turned the toilet into a crime scene happened in Singapore. I spent a few minutes at night before sleeping to revisit parts of my life for the last one, two years before I left Singapore. In hope of finding out in clarity that abuse my body was subjected to, learn from mistakes and hopefully find a way to coax my body to full recovery.

1 comment:

  1. Just to make you happy.

    My dad was diagnosed with lung cancer when he was younger due to his smoking. He stopped and never had any relapse. The lump in his lung actually stopped growing, diminished and disappeared altogether.

    It is your stress and lifestyle that caused it, now that you are in white land, enjoy the scenery, smell the roses and of cause, read my business blog. You will need to be financially free to have a final good life.

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