There is something surreal about walking into a hospital knowing that when you wake up, a part of your body will be gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My radical prostatectomy wasn’t simply a medical procedure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It represented hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Possibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the belief that removing the prostate might remove the cancer with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before surgery, you hear about recovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Catheters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pelvic-floor exercises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Continence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sexual function.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Walking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Healing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can prepare for those things intellectually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Living them is different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cancer treatment has a way of stripping away some of the privacy and independence we take for granted. Suddenly things you never imagined discussing become part of everyday conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And through all of it, Sue was there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That part of the story matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cancer may happen inside one person’s body, but it reaches far beyond the patient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were days when I was frustrated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Days when I was scared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Days when progress felt too slow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And there were moments when something small\u2014walking a little farther, getting one tube removed, having a better day than the day before\u2014felt like an enormous victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recovery taught me to redefine progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes progress isn’t dramatic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes progress is simply:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today was a little better than yesterday.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n But surgery also delivered information we weren’t expecting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The final pathology showed that the cancer was more aggressive and more extensive than we had hoped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gleason 4+5=9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Extension outside the prostate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Seminal vesicle involvement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Positive margins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And cancer in a lymph node.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The cancer that imaging had appeared to suggest was contained had written a very different story under the microscope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That was difficult to absorb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We had crossed the surgery Mile Marker believing we might be approaching the end of treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, we discovered another road ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That’s one of the hardest lessons cancer teaches:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes the thing you thought was the finish line is simply another Mile Marker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we adjusted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We learned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And we kept going.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Facing the Unknown and Finding Strength There is something surreal about walking into a hospital knowing that when you wake up, a part of your body will be\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":159,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[29,15,16,19],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mile-marker-journal","category-treatment-and-recovery","tag-cancer-journey","tag-prostate-cancer","tag-radical-prostatectomy","tag-surgery-recovery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesingforthejourney.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesingforthejourney.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesingforthejourney.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesingforthejourney.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesingforthejourney.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jonesingforthejourney.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160,"href":"https:\/\/jonesingforthejourney.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions\/160"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesingforthejourney.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesingforthejourney.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesingforthejourney.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesingforthejourney.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}