Courtesy of Heather I learned a new initialism this week: BLUF, for bottom line up front. This is a good opportunity to put it to use.

I have cancer. Again.

I’ve been sitting on* this bit of info for a while, but my family has been going through some monkey’s paw-level curse shit over the last couple of months. My 89 year old father was diagnosed with cancer on a kidney (which he’s now had removed). My brother, Scott, lost part of a toe to diabetes and had to have the same foot rebuilt to repair damage. My sister-in-law, Vikki, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. (The two of them have been taking care of my dad through his illness, too.) And all of this within weeks of my last cat passing away. I’m assuming that my brother pissed off some old Eastern European woman and she hexed us all.

This time around the cancer isn’t in my throat; it’s in my prostate. Prostate cancer – as people like to point out – is very survivable. In fact, it’s virtually guaranteed that on a long enough timeline any American with a prostate is going to develop cancer there. In most cases a “wait and see what happens” approach is sufficient; I’m not one of those cases.

It doesn’t appear to have spread yet, but it has the potential to be bad if it does, so we’re going for surgical removal rather than taking a chance on radiation doing the job. My doctor doesn’t feel that it’s radically urgent to get it out at once, though, so the surgery is scheduled for November 13th – deliberately right before Thanksgiving so that I can use those vacation days as recovery time.

I’m taking advantage of the pre-surgery time to get my affairs in order, as they say. I’m not worried about something going wrong – although accidents do happen – but because an incident like this is a good reminder of the importance of having a living will, medical releases, and so on in place. Plus I have a shit ton of office work to do before I go under the robotically-wielded knife again. The last thing I want is for my workaholic self to be thinking about getting communications out when I should be stoned on prescribed painkillers, watching trippy movies, and letting myself heal from multiple laparoscopic holes in my abdomen.

So there you have it – the most recent bit of news from my part of the world. How are you doing? Better than that, I hope!

*Unintended pun, but I’ve leaving it.