Woe Is Me

This is the kind of blog post I vowed never to write. A list of woes is quite uninteresting for folks who have their own troubles thank you very much. So why am I doing it anyway? Because it’s the truth of the moment. Sometimes I forget I am (according to all the spiritual traditions that make sense to me) much bigger than this little, isolated, finite self. This week I’ve felt small. I’ll bullet the complaint list so one may skim.

• I have a cold and my head feels like it's full of, well, what it is full of.


• the Democratic primary contenders are bad mouthing each other


• the Asian market are dropping now too!
  
• I'm reading about people losing their homes and losing their jobs and moving in with their parents, guys in their 40's and 50's


• it's cold out (duh!)


• the usual violence is occurring hither and yon


• Sam, my beloved, is scheduled for radiation on his prostate tumor sometime very soon

I'm sure it's the last that is contributing the most to my heart-heavy outlook. I belong to an e-mail list of prostate warriors. Last week two reports came in from men who had very serious symptoms from their radiation series. Statistically this likelyhood is low, but hearing actual stories is haunting. I worried a lot before Sam began his ADT (androgen deprivation therapy). If you don't count the high blood pressure that has resulted, he has weathered his "therapy" pretty well. His attitude and mood have remained up-beat even as his strength and libido have waned. He is still taking 40 mile bike rides and spinning twice a week. What a guy!

So the truth is that my bleak mood is fingering every negative issue. It's not the markets or the elections or even my aching head; it's my inability to control the outcome of Sam's treatment. Good to know. Thanks for listening.

There are a lot of resources for men (and their wives) regarding prostate issues. Here are a couple: Us Too and Prostate Cancer Research Institute