Personal health challenge

I have got a doctor appointment for June 10. I expect this to be only the beginning.

Since January or early February my bladder has been shrinking. As late as last year, I could sleep as long as I wanted on weekends. Now, even though I go to the bathroom last thing before sleep, I can rarely sleep 7 hours before I have to get up and urinate again. Sometimes closer to 5 hours. This is not natural. It is like I have aged two decades in five months.

So yeah, I have to assume I have my first cancer. I suppose it could be some kind of hernia putting pressure on the bladder. One thing I am pretty sure it is not, diabetes. I don’t urinate significantly more, or I would have noticed it. Will still check blood sugar too, just to eliminate.
If it is prostate cancer, it should be fairly easy to diagnose and the prognosis is generally good. I don’t have typical prostate symptoms though. The pressure is less than in my youth, but it is far from stop & go. It really seems more like some outside pressure on the bladder itself.

Or I may just be more sensitive, possibly. I can’t say I have seen any general symptoms of cancer spreading, like unnatural weight loss or fatigue. So it seems too early to panic. I will make sure to inform you of any panic if it becomes relevant.

In any case, I should probably not enter into any new long term commitments, financial or otherwise, until this is checked out.

3 thoughts on “Personal health challenge

  1. Well . . . what a shock to see this post!

    There are other things that might fit.

    The first one I thought of was simply getting older. It happens. I have no idea how suddenly, but it does. Jeff is healthy and still has to get up during the night, and I’ve lived with him long enough to have been in on the onset of this. It was probably . . . five years ago? . . . that it started happening. So, first impression: aging.

    Second impression: bladder infection. I’ve had these before, sometimes for a long time before realizing, “Hmm . . . been peeing a lot lately. And uncomfortably.” Bladder infections can be insidious and last a long time at a relatively low level of irritation to the sufferer until they suddenly make themselves quite noticeable. Having one is how I first found out I was allergic to sulfa drugs, which are commonly used to treat bladder infections.

    Thirdly, though, especially when you come right out and say it yourself, was a concern about prostate cancer. Not having one myself, of course, I have no idea how they’d present. Men having to pee a lot as they age is fairly ubiquitous, though . . . enough that there are (not very funny) jokes about it.

    I wish they could get you into the doctor’s office sooner. Times like these reinforce my wish that you were on the same continent as us.

    I’ll be praying for you diligently. I’ll also inform the kids, who will do the same. Hope this isn’t a TMI response, but . . . it’s a post about the urinary tract, therefore I felt this was a fairly straightforward response. We worry about you, and you’ll just have to accept that fact seeing as you are a part of the family, virtually or not!

    • Yeah, I agree that it is not certain this is a cancer. But the risk is too high for me to just ignore it further. On the other hand, recent studies show a 2% risk of potentially fatal sepsis from the biopsy test, so I will have to think this over if a blood test is positive. If not, well, then that’s out of the way. I can live with sleeping twice a night.

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