This week I’ll walk into a hospital feeling fit, with no symptoms.
Dr. “Zap” will sit at a console at the side of an operating room. Across the room, a da Vinci robot will carry out his instructions via five small incisions.
Good riddance to my prostate, a ticking time bomb. (I’ll miss it, though.)
Next day I’ll leave the hospital, feeling pretty weak.
Walking Back to Fitness
Over time I’ll build up my walking range to the level when I walked into the hospital. It will be a few weeks before I can ride my bicycle.
Until I get bored with it, I’m wearing a FitBit Charge HR activity monitor. I’m setting no daily fitness goals: my body will let me know how far I can walk on any particular day.
The graph at the top of this post refreshes each day. Check back in a few days to see how I’m doing.
Note: here’s how the graph is kept up to date:
1. My FitBit automatically synchronizes with my phone or tablet via Bluetooth.
2. My phone or tablet automatically synchronize the data with fitbit.com.
3. A “recipe” at IFTTT.com reads new data at fitbit.com and appends it to a Google Sheets spreadsheet.
4. The graph draws data from the spreadsheet every time you open this post.
I haven’t found a simpler way to do this.
July 23, 2016 I replaced the automatically updated graph with a static image. “# daily steps” has served its purpose as a metric for recovery.
Good luck.
Thank you. Tomorrow (June 13) is the big day.
How are you doing? Take it slowly. You are very much in my thoughts.
Thank you. Kind thoughts mean so much to me at this time.
I had surgery today, it went really well, and I'm now in a room for the night. Discomfort is at the level of everyday cramping, which is very tolerable. I have a couple tubes coming out of me: one to drain the surgical site and another for pee.
The big "if" is knowing if the surgical margins are clear of tumor. I'll know tomorrow (Thursday) and will post a Tweet.
Recovery will take a few weeks, but I expect to be doing short walks this week.
Please keep thinking kind thoughts, it's very comforting.
Any news today (Thursday) ?
Surgery went well yesterday, I'm now home feeling a little sorry for myself.
I've just learned that the tumor had spread slightly beyond the prostate. I expect I'll need additional therapy.
My brother went through the same scenario a dozen years, ago, and he is fine today. I'm hopeful.
Relative survival rates are very high, according to the American Cancer Society. I have always admired your profound will to live.
Thank you so much, life is good, I hope you see life that way too. There are different stages of prostate cancer. Mine is stage 3, out of a maximum of 4, but I have huge hope. My brother was in a similar situation, and is doing wonderfully.