Entry Two Hundred Twenty.
Friday, 2019.05.24, 7:37 PM CST.
The cancer scare and the sleep apnea.
Current Mood:  Open.
Current Scent:  None.

Hello again.

So... I haven't mentioned the first part of this post publicly until now, but I wanted to be open about some health problems that some of you might have heard about, so that I could set a few things straight.

I've had some pretty major health issues over the past several months.  I had reason to be pretty worried for a while, but I'm taking care of things and I'm probably going to stick around for a while longer.

So, here goes:

The Cancer Scare.

In the late summer of last year, I had my yearly biometric screening for my "day job."  Part of the screening is a blood sample... and in the blood sample, the lab found an unexpected result.

I had a higher-than-normal level of something called PSA - Prostate Specific Antigen.  A higher level of PSA can be indicative of prostate cancer.  As both of my late parents had had cancer, obviously, I knew that I could be somewhat prone to it... and, as I'm getting older, even more prone.

I had a couple more blood tests to be sure... and then, in December, I went in for a prostate biopsy.

[WARNING:  This part's a bit gross.]  The doctor gave me a local anesthetic, and then he shoved a plastic-sheathed needle up my arse and extracted A DOZEN samples from various points on my prostate.  This was less than comfortable, and I would not recommend it on a recreational basis.

Fortunately, about a week later, I got the call back with the results, and the biopsy was negative for cancer.  As you can imagine, I was relieved.

The Sleep Apnea.

Unfortunately, I also had some other issues:  For a long time, I had felt like I was getting progressively weaker and more exhausted.  Some days, I could be standing up and feel like I could just pass out and go to sleep right then and there.  It was pretty bad.

So, I underwent some testing, including a particularly expensive in-house sleep study at St. John's hospital.  What they found was disturbing:  While I slept, I stopped breathing an average of seven times per hour... except during REM sleep, when I stopped breathing an average of thirty-four times per hour.

So, that was a good chunk of why I was feeling tired all the time.

I now sleep with what's called a CPAP - essentially a mask that fits onto my face each night and forces air into my lungs when I attempt to draw a breath.  This helps to drastically reduce the amount of issues I have... which means that my system is getting more oxygen... which means I sleep better... which means that I'm now more coherent and more alert (most of the time) during the day than I have been in a long, long time.

Another reason that I don't feel like taking as much of people's shit as I used to.

Introspection.

Obviously, this has all caused me to do a lot of thinking.  I'm forty-seven years old.  I don't feel like I'm forty-seven - mentally I feel about twenty-five - but I am forty-seven.  I'm an older, more distinguished, more sophisticated Badger.  Ha!!

I'm not getting any younger.  Hauling around the heavy DJ gear is tiring work for me... and I'll discuss that in my next post.  I have a lot of stuff that I want to do with my life before the Reaper comes knocking at my door.  A lot of stuff.

I'm not dying - not just yet - but I really need to kick some things into gear before I no longer have the energy or the opportunity.

Big changes are coming.  Some of you may like them, and some of you may not.  But... yeah, I've got to change a few things.

More very soon.  Thanks as usual to everyone for your support.

Badger