On Monday, I will be two weeks out from my
open prostatectomy, and unfortunately, have a scrotum the size of an orange with elargement of the left testicle. Although I've been on sulfameth since surgery, I believe I may have orchitis. Catheter comes out Monday Morning, so I'll have my Doc take a close look at my scrotum.
Anyway, havin lots of time to think in my Percocet induced haze, I'd to pass something along to my PCa survivors who frequent this forum. I think this little speech or "tell" is a metaphor for what we've all been through, and what we'll go through in the future months and years. Some of you may say, "Rick! Get off the Percocet, NOW!
Anyway, this metaphor comes from the Mel Gibson Movie, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdrome, and it's a "tell" given by a semi-literate Australian woman, Savannah, who has survived the nuclear disaster that enveloped Australia, and most likely, the rest of the world. As Savannnah give's her final "tell" to her extended family in the ruins of Sydney, I can see parallels to our own plight, for we have alll experienced our own mini nuclear disaster with a prostate cancer diagnosis. In her "tell", I've put in "parenthesis " my ideas of how this "tell" equates to our situations.
Here it is......
"This you knows, the years travel fast and time after time, I done the tell. But this ain't one body's tell, it's the tell of us all, and you've got to listen it and member, cause what you hears today you gotta tell the birthed (newly diagnosed) tomorrow. I's looking behind us now, into history back. I sees those of us that got the luck (early diagnosis) and started the haul for home and I members how it led us here and how we was heartbroke cause we seen what they once was (late diagnosis) One look and we knew'd we'd got it straight. Those what had gone before had the knowin' and doin' of thing beyond or reckonin, even beyond our dreamin". Time counts and keeps countin' and we knows now, findin' the trick of what's been lost (continence and erectile function) ain't no easy ride. But that's our trek. We gotta travel it and there ain't nobody knows where it's gonna lead. Still in all, we members the man who finded us ( the creator of this forum) him that came the salvage and we lights the city (this forum) not just for him but for all of em that are still out there (the undiagnosed) cause we knows there'll come a night when they sees the distant light and they'll be coming home."