DragonBoatPaddlers.net

The more I observe carnation ceremonies at dragon boat festivals, with their inevitable Sea of Pink, I have to admit that I find myself getting irritated.

Before I meander further, and create thousands of grumpy women, let me offer credentials.

I am a 70 year old male with metastasized prostate cancer.

I was diagnosed in mid-2003, and underwent a radical retro-pubic prostatectory (which I couldn’t pronounce, let alone spell, at the time the surgeon sliced me up and put my prostate gland in a jar) which, alas, was too late to rid me of the disease. It had already metastasized, although we didn’t know it for a few months.

There was no need to treat it way back then – there was no way of knowing where it was then residing, because it was too small to detect, outside of the blood test which told us it was alive and kicking.

So yes, folks, I’m a Survivor, sort of. I’m still here. But I’m also a patient. In another month or so, because the cancer has grown to its original state and now represents a threat to my life, I will begin to receive anti-androgen treatment in the form of a drug called Lupron.

Lupron is a medication that is used for the treatment of prostate cancer. Lupron treats the disease in its advanced stages, and is not intended to cure it, but instead to manage it by slowing down its progression and soothing some of its uncomfortable symptoms. The medicine is administered via injection. In my case, the dose will be designed to last about six months and injected subcutaneously.

You can read the balance of this opinion piece here, in the forum.