Am I doing the right thing………?

Well, I never expected to be posting like this. It is 6 minutes past two in the morning on Bank Holiday Monday, a time when all normal mortals in the New Forest are tucked up nice and cosy in their leafy burrows. Steve, as you can see, is not. I am sitting at the keyboard of my faithful old computer, waiting for the paracetamol to take away the mother of all headaches, caused by yet another session of Australian Shiraz. Yup – it was self-inflicted and I’m not after sympathy. I had a great Sunday, got invited to have Sunday lunch with friends in Salisbury and had a really wonderful afternoon and evening with them, watching them get through beer and wine and brandy, while I enjoyed the best of Adam’s Ale. No – I’m not TT, it’s just that I will NOT drink and drive. When I was younger, (a lot younger!) I killed two cars and nearly killed myself, by driving when I was so drunk I shouldn’t even have been allowed to walk. So I believe that it will be third time unlucky for me. For the last twenty odd years, if I have car keys in my pocket, then I will not drink. (Hang on a minute while I polish the halo……..) But when I got home, the wine box came out while I sat and caught up with the outside world by reading all my e-mails…….sorry, both my emails. Interesting, though. One was for a product which absolutely guaranteed to give me the biggest erection ever seen (That will be useful – I’m having my prostate removed soon) and the other was for a website which offered ladies who would ……… OK, enough said. Nothing new in either of those e-mails. We all get them and we all dump them or our anti-virus software dumps them for us. But it was enough to start me thinking. (that in itself is a dangerous condition for me to be in) Couple that with the wine and I spiralled down into that black place again……….. The question that I kept asking myself is….Am I doing the right thing? To recap, I’m a 56 year old bloke, living alone on the edge of the New Forest. I have been diagnosed recently with locally-advanced prostate cancer – and I have maintained, ever since PC was a possibility, that the prostate should come out. I’ve written it before on this blog – cut the beggar out and be done with it. But last night, I got to thinking. ….. At this point, dear Reader, I am about to take you on a journey into a bloke’s psyche – you might want to switch over and see what’s on the other side. You have been warned………! As a young man, there are only two things that are important – the size of your car and the size of your penis. Sadly, that ridiculous state of affairs is often carried through into adulthood, with a bloke fretting about the size of his ‘best friend’ all through his twenties, thirties and beyond – peeking over at the man next to him in a public toilet, or gawping with disbelief at the massive display exhibited by the super-studs in the porn movies. In exactly the same way that ladies fret about the size of their boobs or their bums (and all you girls have done it at some point in your lives!), blokes worry about the size of their appendage. Not that there is much you can do about it – I don’t believe a word of those penis growth e-mails – and anyway, it’s not what you’ve got, it’s the way that you use it. But – and here, if you will pardon the phrase, is the rub – am I doing the right thing by saying that the prostate must come out? Consider……. At 56, I hope I have another 20-something years left in me. Prostate cancer is not an aggressive beast and probably takes 15 – 20 years to get to a point where life is threatened. So, I could just leave the cancer alone – keep the prostate – and be able to have an erection if ever I need one (Note the word ‘if’, not ‘when’ – if nothing else I’m a realist!) I would still be …..(big roll on the drums and clash of cymbals…)…’A Man’ However – if I have surgery to remove the little devil – there is a chance that I will suffer from a bit of incontinence (I can live with that – and anyway, it’s not for too long) and there is also a very strong chance that the nerve bundles each side of the prostate will be damaged and my ability to have an erection will be compromised. So the question I’ve been pondering is this:- Have the surgery (get rid of the cancer – and probably get rid of the ability to stand up and be counted) Or Not have the surgery (keep the cancer, which might spread in many years time – but also keep the ability to be …..(another big drum roll and clash of cymbals…)…’A Man’ Do you see my dilemma? I know the answer – cut it out. But you can’t help thinking, can you? When the sun rises on Bank Holiday Monday, my thoughts will centre on the garden and which bit to weed – but, for now, (and it’s now half past three and still pitch black outside) it’s the useless growth inside my body that is commanding my attention. We’re strange creatures, us humans, aren’t we? Thank you for being there. Much love Steve x