PSA

I long for the days when PSA was just a random, non-threatening string of letters. An acronym that could have stood for anything and certainly had no bearing on my life. But ever since spring 2005 Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) has been anything but non-threatening.

You might be lucky and wondering, "What the heck is PSA?" Well, short story is that it's the stuff that prostates give off - and it's measurable. So if your number is rising it means that prostate cells are growing. And if it's rising they are growing fast. And generally, that means prostate cancer. In addition, if you've had your prostate removed - technically your PSA should be untraceable since you shouldn't have any prostate cells to produce PSA. So if you have a traceable PSA and it goes up over time - you've got prostate cells growing somewhere in your body. Sucks, right? So when you're diagnosed and have had treatment you go in every so often to find out your number. So that's PSA in a nutshell.

So in Mr. Monkey's case it's been rising the past few months (he's had his prostate removed, radiated and been treated with hormones) and so have the hours of my awake time. So I fill that time with other, less threatening acronyms - fb, dvr, sois (staring off into space). Although my favorite pastime is denial and avoidance. After all, it's how I deal with housework and other unwanted things. May as well use the same coping mechanism for cancer. But I did do some vacuuming today - so next week I will begin researching new treatment options for the next phase.

So wish us luck - and hopefully we'll have a new path mapped out soon (as well as a clean kitchen) but let's not get ahead of ourselves.