Bill E.'s Open Salon Blog

Prostate Cancer - Am I Ever Going to have Sex Again?

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 02:07:46 -0400

Two months ago I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. I had volunteered for a study for men over 50 with BPH (benign prostatic hyperplasia), where peeing becomes increasingly difficult. Sometimes I'd wake up in the middle of the night having to go really bad, and just couldn't. Not much fun. So, to qualify for the study I had to meet certain parameters, one of which was my PSA had to be between 0 and 4. Mine came out 4.1, which disqualified me for the study - unless I had a biopsy that was negative for cancer. I thought what the hell, I'm 68, and it might be prudent to have a look-see. But guess what, I did test positive for prostate cancer, which was, as you might expect, shocking.

So the Dr. and I discussed my options - surgery to remove the prostate, or radiation. At first I opted for surgery since what he told me about radiation was terrible: probable impotence within a few years and/or incontinence. But then I met with a radiation oncologist, who helpfully laid out all the percentages, or odds, that this or that would occur with this or that treatment. After that I leaned toward external beam radiation, which was a 39-day (weekends off) program. They hit you from a different angle each day which lets surrounding tissues heal as the prostate is zeroed in on each time.

So, that's what I'm looking forward to in October. I then got an injection to essentially cut off testerone production, which forces me, basically, into menopause. The largest problem with that is, while it stops the cancer in its tracks and shrinks the prostate, the goddamned hot flashes. Ask any women who's gone through menopause and she'll give you an earfull - you're suddenly very warm (or the room feels very warm) followed by the most awful cold sweats. This has been going on now for a month and it's pretty much non-stop, two to four times an hour, and it really takes it out of me.

Alright, I'm dealing with the cancer, but the thing that really gets me is the possibility that my sex life is over. My libido is just about zero, though I'm told it will (I hope) it will return. But there's a fair chance it won't, and that has me really worried; it's more worrisome than the bloody cancer! It's not like I had a big love life before all this befell me, but the thought that it might be all over is terrifying. I look back wistfully at my youth, remembering how wonderful it was. It's normal for one's libido to wane, and that's been tough to deal with as I resist getting older. But it WAS there - all I needed was a partner, and, of course, that's a whole 'nother story. But now I'm feeling like I'm caught in a huge vise, with my prospects looking bleak. Am I a whiner? Am I being too negative? I don't know. What I do know is that I'm scared.

Who Killed Rosie Larson?

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 05:06:55 -0400

I just watched the finale of The Killing on AMC. I was convinced the show would reveal the killer, but we're left with this weird bait-and-switch, implicating the cop Steven Holder. I am left with a terrible emptiness in the pit of my stomach, since we really don't know whodunnit, dammit! And now we have to wait for the next season to find out just what the hell's up. What a pisser!

Our Kids Do Grow Up

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 02:04:00 -0400

My son's about to graduate high school, and I waited all day to see him. I called him about 2 and he was busy with friends and wouldn't be home until late, so don't worry about dinner. So off and on during the day I reminisced, about when my kids were little, how excited they were to see Daddy, and I got a lot of the running hugs. Then we'd plan a fun day and go do something and have a great time. It's been like that ever since my divorce, back in 2000, when they were 12 and 8. (that 12-year-old is now graduating college). But they grow up, and, inevitably they'd rather hang with their friends sometimes. Before you know it it's friends all the time and my place becomes a flop house. That's ok, I get that. But here I was, waiting to see my happy, engaging, funny kid. So who shows up? - someone I scarcely know. He's withdrawn. He messes with his phone for an hour, says nothing. He writes someone a letter, longhand and needs an envelope and a stamp. I ask what's wrong, and I get, "I don't want to talk about it!" in a harsh tone. I'm about to get the full force of the 'empty nest' syndrome, so I'm trying to spend as much quality time with him until he splits.

This is all nothing new, but my memories of him as a little kid who's crazy about Daddy ran headlong into reality tonight. I know he's growing up and out, and, of course I want him to have a great life. But sometimes watching your kids growing up sucks.

Why I'm Glad I'm No Longer in TV News

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 21:04:32 -0400

My son, a senior at NYU, moderated a panel on blogging and the changing landscape of journalism over the weekend, and the opening sentence of the accompanying article reads: "You don't want a job in media, honestly, you don't!" The above article is quite illuminating. Anyway, it got me thinking about my time in the TV news business - how much fun it was in the beginning and how awful it was at the end of a 27-year career.

My foray into TV news was timed pretty well. I was armed with a B.S. in meteorology from Penn State a few years earlier. I thought I could give TV weather a shot since so few people had degrees in weather (most were booth announcers or had a kiddie show, and had nice voices). So I applied to a small station in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. It was 1973 and there was virtually no weather technology when I started. We used big plastic-covered maps and drew on them with magic markers. That was it. I can recall, after about three years in the business, when satellite photos were first available, only the government was using them. I had to drive to the local National Weather Service office at the airport and steal hard copies of a photo. They got one every half hour or so on a big fax machine and would give me an old one. I'd take it to the studio and they'd shoot it with a studio camera and make a still frame, which I would put on the air full-screen and just talk about it. Sometimes I'd draw a front or high or low with a pen. No chroma key (that's where the weather person appears to be standing in front of the map), and that was our only weather effect.

News was shot on film and processed in a gigantic machine, then cut and edited by hand - actually chopped up and glued together. I recall walking through the newsroom with long pieces of film from the cutting room floor (there really used to be a cutting room floor!) attached to my shoes. About once a month the entire newscast was chewed up and destroyed by the film processor. Then we really had to scramble. Talk about rip-and-read! It was great fun.

Commercials were also on film - we had like six projectors with these tiny reels, constantly changed by the 'film op.' Now and then a director would scream, "There's a hair in the gate!" meaning a big ball of fuzz was caught in the projector and was, at that moment on TV. Some guy would run like hell to remove it. National commercials arrived by mail, were aired for however long, usually a week or two, and sent back. By today's standards, the early '70s were the dark ages!

Over the years I saw the transformation of news and weather, from rip-and-read and plastic maps and film on the floor and hairy gates - to the whole complex thing TV news is today. With the burgeoning technology came more and more pressure, as the money and investment in computers and other expensive equipment exploded. As far back as the 1980s, a studio camera cost upwards of $100,000. Imagine the cost of upgrading from giant back-room tape machines to digital, and then high-definition. The fun of trying to hammer a newscast together, from bits of film and wire copy, slowly became less fun. To make matters worse, as I aged, a large part of my audience aged too. That eventually put them in a different, and not so highly regarded, demographic. The pressure to win back younger viewers grew and grew. At the end I hated the business and hated going to work every day.

TV news didn't know it at the time, but all the technology was sowing the seeds of its own demise. Satellites gave us all the toys but also gave us dozens, if not hundreds, of other channels. All that competition, of course, diluted the advertisers' available money, with everyone clamoring for the same dollar. TV news was very arrogant back in the good old days, when there were just three channels. (I've been out of the biz for several years. Imagine the pressure now!) So there's no money in it anymore. Stations have no money to hire anyone, and if they do, they pay low-ball wages. It was a great ride while it lasted, but I would never advise anyone to get involved today. I'm often asked if I miss the business. My answer: Nope - not a bit! What I do miss are my first ten years. I'm afraid my advice to young people looking at a career in journalism is : "You don't want a job in media, honestly, you don't!"

My Left Nut

Sat, 7 Aug 2010 20:08:30 -0400

Overheard at a 12-step meeting today: "For years I'd say, 'I'd give my left nut for that house, I'd give my left nut for that car or I'd give my left nut for that woman. Then a few years later I was diagnosed with testicular cancer - and lost my left nut!' "