Forty long days...and forty long nights

It all started on the morning of 2-10-2018.

I woke up that Saturday with a dull pain in my left shoulder.

 

Taking a page from legendary middle-distance runner Glenn Cunningham (whose mom and dad massaged his legs when he was a little boy who'd survived a schoolhouse fire), I thought that massaging my left shoulder would help out. If not that, then letting the shower water hit that shoulder would take the pain away. 

No dice.

So I started taking ibuprofen. (It helped a little...but not nearly enough.)

The following Monday, I called my doctor and made an appointment...and it was going to double as a checkup.

And so, on 2-22-2018, I was on the receiving end of a checkup for the first time in...70 months.

Yeah, I know. It was MY fault I stayed away.

In April 2012, my previous checkup showed that I needed to improve my cholesterol score- or else I'd have to get put on a prescription medicine to lower that cholesterol. So...I traded my beloved snack cakes for cereal bars, and I started eating less beef and less pork while going for more chicken and more turkey.

Well, the February 2018 results demonstrated that my cholesterol was where it needed to be.

The bad news was my 10.4 PSA. (A 4.9 PSA is considered healthy.)

Next thing I knew, I was given an appointment to Omaha's Urology Center (111 S. 90th St., 68114). 

I reported there on 3-5-2018...and ended up finding out, through the center's own lab tests, that the doctors and nurses had me at 1-in-3 to 1-in-2 odds of developing prostate cancer.

Result: Tomorrow at 8:30 AM, I've got to undergo a biopsy.

The biopsy will take place at the Urology Center's surgery facility (105 S. 90th St., 68114). Once that procedure's finished, I'll know in five to seven days whether I've got the Big C.

At least prostate cancer's treatable.  

Meanwhile, my left shoulder had been getting better, thanks to Diclofenac sodium tablets (two 75-MG pills a day...and they've got to be taken with food).

I had to stop taking Diclofenac on 3-13-2018...in order to get ready for tomorrow's biopsy. (And I can't wait to get back on the pills again, 'cause my left shoulder's feeling the pain again!) 

Here's hoping everything goes fine tomorrow. (Don't worry...I'll fight to get a checkup every year from now on.)

And here's hoping all the very best for you, too.