Friday
Now: A quick aside for guys under 50
If you've been led to this site by our national men's health nonprofit, the MansGland Campaign, and you have a bit of curiosity about your own health, please read on. If you're a viewer here from other emerging media experiments, while the following quick chapter is preachy, I invite you to scan it. Or skip it.
Gentlemen, I hope you don’t have prostate cancer and never will. If you do, this book isn’t going to shove on you too many scary details about what’s going on with your little walnut-sized gland – and what the medical profession wants to do to you and it. There’s plenty of that material in other books, articles and the Web.
First though, back to those who don’t think they have it. If you have never had a blood test for the Prostate Specific Antigen, or PSA, listen closely. Also, if you assume your doctor includes the PSA in your blood tests during physicals, I’m sorry, but you’re a fool like I was.
So, put down this book and call for an appointment for a PSA test if:
1. You’re over 40 and you think you have to pee more often than your buddies.
2. You’re 49 or older.
When you call or visit your doctor, if they try to talk you out of the PSA test for any reason, don't let them. You need to know something, versus knowing nothing.
Am I angry that some docs don't do enough PSA tests? Yes. Am I completely informed about the debate over the PSA test? No. But since I am now missing my prosperous gland, I choose not to wallow in the muck around this topic. A PSA test is a cancer alert. A doc’s finger up your ass is, as I discovered, very unreliable in the hands of a doofus.
If you’re a woman reading this, also put down this book. Go find a guy, any guy, yours or a stranger. Carefully remove the TV remote control from his hand and click off the tube. Take an object – like a book -- and give him a pretty good whomp on the forehead. Then say: “Now that I’ve got your attention, we are going to make an appointment for a PSA test now, and you’re going to keep it.”
Am I making this suggestion because I subscribe to the popular poke-fun-at-men’s-ignorance media culture? Several men’s organizations have taken me to task with this accusation. My answer: I could give a whit about what you think. I personally needed whomping. I almost died. I’m allowed to promote whomping.
You may have read about many of the famous guys who are now glandless, as you'll read later in a chapter called 1-800, many of them were whomped by a woman before they got themselves to a doctor.
Now, about the stories that follow. My hope is that although they recount personal actions and encounters on my path to trying to survive, perhaps you'll be more motivated to do the following:
Reach out to all of your family and friends and ask them to help. Be open-minded and adventurous about every suggestion and offer. One strong personal recommendation is to love a dog for its healing power. And take this circumstance to seriously start acting healthier in your diet, exercise, stress levels, mental baggage and so on. There. That’s it. ¶ 4:02 PM
Gentlemen, I hope you don’t have prostate cancer and never will. If you do, this book isn’t going to shove on you too many scary details about what’s going on with your little walnut-sized gland – and what the medical profession wants to do to you and it. There’s plenty of that material in other books, articles and the Web.
First though, back to those who don’t think they have it. If you have never had a blood test for the Prostate Specific Antigen, or PSA, listen closely. Also, if you assume your doctor includes the PSA in your blood tests during physicals, I’m sorry, but you’re a fool like I was.
So, put down this book and call for an appointment for a PSA test if:
1. You’re over 40 and you think you have to pee more often than your buddies.
2. You’re 49 or older.
When you call or visit your doctor, if they try to talk you out of the PSA test for any reason, don't let them. You need to know something, versus knowing nothing.
Am I angry that some docs don't do enough PSA tests? Yes. Am I completely informed about the debate over the PSA test? No. But since I am now missing my prosperous gland, I choose not to wallow in the muck around this topic. A PSA test is a cancer alert. A doc’s finger up your ass is, as I discovered, very unreliable in the hands of a doofus.
If you’re a woman reading this, also put down this book. Go find a guy, any guy, yours or a stranger. Carefully remove the TV remote control from his hand and click off the tube. Take an object – like a book -- and give him a pretty good whomp on the forehead. Then say: “Now that I’ve got your attention, we are going to make an appointment for a PSA test now, and you’re going to keep it.”
Am I making this suggestion because I subscribe to the popular poke-fun-at-men’s-ignorance media culture? Several men’s organizations have taken me to task with this accusation. My answer: I could give a whit about what you think. I personally needed whomping. I almost died. I’m allowed to promote whomping.
You may have read about many of the famous guys who are now glandless, as you'll read later in a chapter called 1-800, many of them were whomped by a woman before they got themselves to a doctor.
Now, about the stories that follow. My hope is that although they recount personal actions and encounters on my path to trying to survive, perhaps you'll be more motivated to do the following:
Reach out to all of your family and friends and ask them to help. Be open-minded and adventurous about every suggestion and offer. One strong personal recommendation is to love a dog for its healing power. And take this circumstance to seriously start acting healthier in your diet, exercise, stress levels, mental baggage and so on. There. That’s it. ¶ 4:02 PM
