I turning 60 very soon. A few months ago I signed up for a couple of hernia repairs that were job related. Soon discovered I have metastatic prostate cancer. We fuck me, right? My doc is quite clear in advising me I may get five good years out of this predicament. I'm going to retire from EMS in a few years. I'm used the sick and dying and I've never ever failed to remember that people are not patients. They are humans, with fears and hopes, and memories and wishes and plans. Still, they are no less than my own family, and I treat them as such. I'm finding it hard to realize modern EMS is evolving to something other than I practice. Modern EMS deals with numbers and files. While confidentiality has solved some important issues, it has been just as effective at anonymizing the average human being. Thats makes it harder each year to convince the newbies and past newbies that their charges are NOT a piece of paper with symptoms and treatments. I'm fighting a losing battle, and thats goddam hard. I just didn't evolve that way. Then there's the issue of my death. I'm not afraid of dying. I'm having a bloody hard time dealing with the fact the love I have for my wife and family is going to end. i mean, shit, it's been the most fun any man, woman or genetic variant thereof could ever hope to experience. That is hard to accept. The whole experience of all things in time. Walter Cronkite. The moon landing. Color TV. Nikes and GWGs. My first Timex Sinclair, wisdom teeth, Monty Python and Romper Room. I have, seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. You know, stuff.
Other than that, it's also the pissing issue. I'm up to getting out of bed at least 4 to 6 times a night now. And I be damned if I don't have to just stand there while my bladder decides whether or not it's going to save some for later, or my brain convinces me I'm going to be awhile so I may as well just sit down and stupify some. THAT is harder now that I'm turning into something I just can't realize. I'm a former long period hiker who was used to lugging a quarter of my weight for a couple of weeks at least. Not anymore. I hardly ever did any drugs after I survived "the generation" and the yellow bus merry pranksters era. Now I have one of those 7 day 4 event contraptions that holds everything from hormones to hormones. 12 pills a day. Hot flashes, mood swings and Google reminders to take my next dose. Thats harder to accept than I wished it was. Then there's my cat and my dog. Those little fuckers mean the world to me. It's harder to accept they'll someday wonder where the fuck I am because they trained me so well and this was unexpected. Sorry for the rant. I just couldn't pass this question up. I've never posted anything like this since the shit started. So there we go. It's done already.