Friday, May 21, 2021

Last night I went to bed at 10:30, fell asleep quickly, got up once at 3am, fell back asleep quickly, finally waking/getting up at 6:30.

We left the apt at 8am for my 9am urology appointment. We were finally taken in at 9:30 and were out by 10am.

My urologist speaks good English but the receptionist/assistant and Teresa, not at all.

What I know (or with my limited Spanish, what I think I know) and remember:

I have adenocarcinoma (aka glandular cancer) of the prostate which has been caught early. It was first indicated by my PSA test results increasing from 3.48 early 2020 to 6.57 late 2020 to 8.72 early 2021 and was confirmed by the biopsy late last month.  It’s a tumor believed to be localized to the inside of my prostate. Treatment is radiotherapy or surgery to remove the prostate. I asked if radiotherapy could be tried first and if that doesn’t work we would go to surgery but he didn’t recommend it because surgery would be more difficult due to the scarring from the radiotherapy. The cost would be about 13million or 14million pesos ($3600-$3900 depending on the currency exchange rate at the time) and would be done by laparoscopy and they would also repair my umbilical hernia at the same time. This would all be done through a private surgeon and hospital. (If I went the public insurance route it would probably cost something like $5 but the wait would be weeks to months.) Even though the doctor said there is no hurry I would rather get this over with ASAP. Teresa will be making an appointment for another minor test/procedure which I understand (Teresa had one before her mastectomy) is to confirm I don’t have bone cancer. Surgery side effects include a small chance of urinary incontinence and a larger chance of erectile dysfunction but the doctor said at my age and with my otherwise good health I should live to a ripe old age.

To be continued…

We went to Santa Leña where Teresa had eggs, a croissant and café con leche and I had the same without the eggs.

She did some shopping before we returned to the apt by taxi.

Teresa went to take a nap but someone started playing and singing in the street. I heard Teresa say “I hope it starts raining so they will stop” and darned if it didn’t start raining. It stopped 5 minutes later after they had left. 😊

For a late lunch we ordered picanugys from Frisby. The one thing they didn’t get right is neither of our chicken nuggets were bathed in the requested sauce.

Teresa beat me in parcheesi today 4 games to 0.

I believe that little rain shower we had ended our streak of two days without rain.

 

The US has 33,053,583 ð 33,076,464 ð 33,105,303 coronavirus cases with 587,400+ ð 588,100+ ð 588,800+ deaths.

Per Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 3,161,126 ð 3,177,212 ð 3,192,050 cases with 82,743 ð 83,233 ð 83,719 deaths. Medellin has 288,554 ð 289,378 ð 290,460 cases, an increase of 1,070 from May 20^th to 21^st. Envigado has a total of 23,887 cases, an increase of 51 from May 20^th to 21^st.

 

Joke of the day

He says, “Shall we try swapping positions tonight”?

She says, “That's a good idea... you stand by the ironing board while I lie on the sofa and snooze.”