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care than that. They were wonderful. As soon as I could, I got up and went for walks. In time I was back jogging. I'm a firm believer in exercise and because I'm also lazy I chose jogging as my exercise of choice. You can run a mile or two in under 20 minutes. Anyone can do 20 minutes a day.
The next step was radiation. I was living with my brother in Eugene, Oregon, at the time so I went to a cancer center there. I had some questions I wanted to ask the radiologist so I wrote them down and went in for the first appointment. He was a very prim guy with a bow tie and when I tried to ask the questions he just brushed me off. Apparently he was the god of medicine and I was some peon taking up his valuable time. I thought seriously of going somewhere else, but I don't think there were a lot of choices in Eugene. First they tattooed dots on my lower stomach to line up the machine and a male nurse assured me that the radiologist was the best and I was in good hands. I needed that. I did 8 weeks of radiation and there was some pain but other than that it was okay.
The hope was that the radiation would get the rest of the cancer, but it didn't.
When I recovered, I entered into a life-long routine of a hormone shot every three months. The shot keeps the testosterone down and testosterone carries the cancer. The downside is they are female hormone shots so I lost a lot of body hair (I don't hang out in locker rooms). Also the shots gave me hot flashes and mood swings. The mood swings were nothing new, I've always bounced around on the manic-depressive scale. One bad show and I'm dark as hell. A good show and I'm king of the world.
I still get those mood swings and had one yesterday. They are a bitch. I played golf in the morning and the switch in my brain clicked over. Suddenly I was mad at my swing, my partner, the weather, grass, trees, everything. I tried to keep quiet and soldier on but after 15 holes I told my friend the medicine was getting me and I had to go in. I decided to eat a big breakfast and go home, get in bed and watch Grey's Anatomy all day. It was a good plan, but I'd forgotten Jintana and I had promised to drive Awee to her singing lesson. That pissed me off too, and I was moody on the drive and while we waited for Awee. I'd told Jintana what was happening and tried very hard to just be quiet. We got back home and I went back to bed. Later I went out alone to dinner and found myself crying in the car. I got back home, went to bed and this morning was back to normal. Male menopause is a terrible thing.
Ah, and now the hot flashes. I am firmly on the side of every woman going through menopause. Hot flashes are a bitch. You're living your life and suddenly it feels like you're running a marathon in Saudi Arabia. If you're playing league golf in Thailand, where insanity rules, in the hottest part of the day and suddenly you get a hot flash you've just doubled down. Your legs buckle, all the energy drains from your body, a mood swing kicks in, and it seems only right to send your