Life after the Lottery: Interlude

Where did I go?

I want to thank everyone that has contacted me and asked when the next story would be out or where I went. I made some inferences to health problems in the last chapter, so I better explain.

In April (2015) I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The first week of June I had a prostatectomy. I had told my doctor that I thought I was a little young for prostate cancer, but he said unfortunately not. The biopsy before the surgery showed that it was rather advanced and moderately aggressive. The decision was made to remove it and surrounding tissue then wait and see what the biopsy showed. After eight weeks the doctor informed me that it appeared they got all the cancer during surgery and follow-up radiation may not be needed.

They have some new genetic tests now they can run on the biopsied tissue to see if you are at high risk of the cancer returning and my doctor was afraid I would be due to the nature of the progression and the pre-surgical biopsy, so I had the test run. About a month later the doctor called and said the results of the genetic test showed that I was actually at low risk of the cancer returning. Based on that and my negative first PSA test we decided against any follow-up radiation and everything looks good for now.

Getting through knowing you have cancer and waiting for all the follow-ups is a mentally tasking thing. I got out the last chapter during that time but have just not be able to finish the next ones. I have many more chapters for LATL in the works, so there is no chance of running out of further chapters for a long time!

During the two years prior to the cancer I had been developing some continuing arm and shoulder pain that I was told was related to a car wreck from about 10 years earlier. So despite getting through all the pain from the prostate removal I was still in pain in my arms and shoulders and the problem was getting worse and keeping me from writing or doing much of anything else.

In October I was told that I needed to have two vertebrae in my lower neck fused because the disc was collapsing. The first week of November I developed some issues with the neck and the bad disc and I had to have a posterior cervical fusion performed. This is a rather painful surgery with a painful recovery. It has been a very painful thing for me. I had to have several doctors confer that I was healthy enough from the surgery in June to have the cervical fusion performed, but it got to a point I didn't have a choice.

So you can see that I have been through a lot since April. I am slowly getting my act back together, but between still recovering from the prostate cancer scare and surgery and now this neck surgery, I am recovering slowly. The two surgeries and recovery have left me with several annoying side effects. I hope that by early January I will get the next part of the trip with Linda posted, I work on it a little on and off. But don't worry, if it is not up by then it will be posted as soon as I can get it finished and proofed. When it's ready and posted I will have this post taken down and continue the series.

Some of what is holding me up is just not getting into writing about LATL. I have started about six new stories that are unrelated to the LATL series just so I would keep busy. You see, after almost six months after the prostate removal I am still quite impotent and the doctors are trying different things. It affects my motivation to write a little. The doctor says he preserved the nerves for getting an erection, but it may take one to two years for everything to start working again. That along with some bladder and internal issues have been hard recovering from.

To all you guys I say this - make sure you start getting PSA test at 50 at least, don't fuck around with the prospects of getting prostate cancer. Most prostate cancer is slow growing and they just watch it. It appears for me that since I got it at my age it was a more aggressive form of cancer and faster growing. I had been screwing around with some up and down PSA test numbers for about three years. The doctor said I probably had had the cancer for at least three years. If my urologist had not insisted on a biopsy (it was fun) I probably would have been in a lot of trouble if I had waited six more months. For you lovely ladies that read and enjoy the stories, if your man is near 50 or past 50, you insist that he start getting a PSA test every year, please. Most prostate cancer is something you can live with for a long time or have removed with fewer issues than I had if caught early.

Survival rates for prostate cancer that has had to be removed are pretty good for five, ten and twenty years, but as with all cancer there is always a chance it may return. I hope I am still posting and reading stories on literotica in twenty or more years!

I just wanted everyone to know that I am still here but recovering. And, I wanted to take this chance to plead with all you guys that are 50 and older to make sure you get an annual PSA test. There are two things I have learned about prostate cancer. Seven out of eight men that are diagnosed with prostate cancer will die from something else. I also learned that if us guys live long enough if we don't die from prostate cancer, we will die with prostate cancer. I have learned a lot this year about prostate cancer and I want to use what I have been through to warn men. If you have immediate male family members, (father, uncles or brothers) that have prostate cancer it puts you at higher risk. Please take my advice if you are in the over 50 category.

I had wanted to write a follow-up to my Christmas Story from last year that everyone seemed to like, but it is not going to happen, sorry. I will fix that next Christmas. I do have a Valentine's Day story in the works I think I can get up by then, so watch for it. It is not as much about Valentine's as it is about a recently married young man learning to tame is rich wife. I have four other stories away from the LATL that I have been playing with for several years that I will get out next year along with the continuing chapters about Life after the Lottery.

Please give me another month or two and I hope things will be back to normal. Thanks to all of you for asking about me and supporting my writing. There are a lot of good writers on the site and always new material. So keep busy and keep reading. As I have noodled with new stories and continuing the series I have noticed my stories getting longer and longer. Some of you ask me to divide them up in to shorter chapters and others of you have said you like curling up with your lady, or your man, and some wine and spending the afternoon reading. Let me know which you like more and I work toward that end.

Feel free to contact me through feedback, I usually reply. For now I am keeping my fingers and toes crossed and hoping everything goes the directions the doctors are saying. I suspect I will be in a lot of pain still until the end of December at least, and that means lots of pain pills, so that will need to let up enough I can sit and write and concentrate. But I promise that I have plenty more to come.

Wish me luck and healing and I hope to have something for you in January.

Drmac100 - James

P.S. - I am looking for a new editor/proofreader. If you are interested, let me know.