That third month

We all have exasperating friends whom we love anyway. My drugs are an example. Lupron, the big needle, and Nubeqa, the white pill, knock out my testosterone. If testosterone meant only beer and Sports Illustrated, I’d notice nothing, but testosterone does honest work on behalf of vitality, and by afternoon I’m draped on a couch.

So I don’t love having Lu and Nu around, but they back me up when it counts: PSA in my March test remained undetectable.

Every three months, the big needle comes out again, the hospital draws blood, and anxiety rises to the top of the playlist.

This time I remembered my father’s words, “A coward dies a thousand deaths, a hero dies but one,”1 and, hearing it again 60 years later, the dust blew off the cliche.

Worrying about cancer is, of course, the easiest thing in the world. Every three months worry opens its arms for me.

I need to remind myself that one death, like the rest of us are getting, is plenty.

My newspaperman father told me how he’d edge through police barricades while cops yelled at him to stay back. “I pretend I don’t hear,” he said, “and keep walking.”

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear,
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.