Death was always a dirty topic for me, something to be avoided and given a very wide berth. But when I was in my early fifties I had atrial fibrillation that caused me great stress and anxiety, and I truly thought I would be dying soon. Partly because my father died of a heart attack at age forty-seven, and partly because I am a worrier.
The first five years of contemplation were spent in total fear, seemingly no progress, but a necessary step for me because I needed to honor the actual fear of dying. Once that had been given due time and true contemplation, with feelings of course, I could use my rational thinking process to determine context. That took another five years or so, and like all things about being human is not a final position but a much more grounded one. Having this more grounded position, with its foundation of contemplative thought that honors feelings and fears, is a much more peaceful place.
So, when the cancer came along I had already done much of the groundwork for the inevitable fear of dying that came with it. This has made my ability to think about the path forward easier and quicker. I am not discounting the fear of death or saying that is no longer a fear, only that putting it all into a context that truly honors my feelings is an easier process.
What is that rational thinking about death you ask? Well, truly at the age of sixty-six, having had a very good life with a lot of love, my main reason for living is to be with family. There is not a whole lot more desire than that.
My number one goal is to get my financial life in order so that it will be easy for my wife and young daughter to go on after I die. My number two goal is to live at least until my youngest daughter is nearing thirty, about another twenty years. I would actually like to live another thirty-two years to be exact, to the age of ninety-eight. This is a number I chose decades ago and I fully expect that to be when I die, but you never know.
More important than the number of years is the quality of life I have, which I work diligently to achieve using moderation, diet, exercise, and overall healthy living. So, it makes sense for me to frame my thinking around these choices, and that means that I choose to have a mindset expecting to live a healthy and happy life until I pass away peacefully in my sleep at the age of ninety-eight. Why would there be any other way of choosing to frame my future?
Being realistic, I realize death could find me more quickly, perhaps even a random traffic accident could take my life, which is actually more likely than dying of prostate cancer. Statistically speaking, at least during the next ten years. But I do not choose to dwell on that or anything other than what I have consciously chosen as my desired path. And I accept there are no guarantees.
So, that focuses me firmly on getting my financial life in order and being present with the time I do have with family. Now I can decide on the best treatment path for what is in front of me, prostate cancer. The first step is gratitude, I recognize that prostate cancer is one of the easier cancers to deal with. Next, what to do about the cancer.
The most important thing is to do all I can to keep the cancer from metastasizing, and from spreading to other parts of my body. This is the key. After that, the next step is to determine how to deal with the cancer that is in the prostate, and there are two paths that seem viable.
One path that seems legitimate is to use the body’s miraculous immune system and specific diet and drug therapies, namely the process described by Thomas Seyfried. From my research, I believe that it is possible to resolve the cancer through diet and focused supplementation and drug regimens, but that is not easy and takes at least a year. To be honest with myself, I am not willing to do this. I do not want to go to that much effort and I am not certain it will work. This disappoints my wife and could appear to be lazy, but it is an honest lifestyle choice that I have the right to make. I accept responsibility for making this choice.
The other path is to remove or ablate the cells of the prostate and hope all the cancer is destroyed. Alongside this approach, I would like to use some of the supplementation, drugs, and dietary tools I mentioned above to address any cancer cells that are not destroyed and to prevent any further cancer from forming. Within this path, there are three options that seem viable - radiation, surgery, and TULSA Pro which is ablation by ultrasound waves heating the tissue. I am choosing TULSA but will not know if this option is available to me until next week when I meet the doctors who will perform the surgery. I am very nervous about this. And possibly excited.
To be continued…