islandtime50
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I am 51, I was in excellent health about 4 years ago - by that I mean working out twice a day except on run days when I only worked out once and taking one rest day a week barring injury. For the last 4 years, I pretty much fell off a cliff - I started a new career, we all went through COVID, and I found out I had colon cancer.
The cancer is as in the bag as that sort of thing can be - I have the best prognosis you can have for a guy who packed a tumour for 8-10 years and had it invade surrounding tissue and then get run down so bad I would have accepted it was my time in that moment. Apparently, 46 sites were sampled surrounding what used to be my colon and they all came back negative and I do not even need chemo ... see you in 6 months. I got downgraded from stage 3 or 4 to 2 asked on my unexpected results.
It's been six months. There have been changes to my diet, I really can't drink alcohol, I can't tolerate creatine any more, and I'm really not making any physical/fitness progress for the first time in my life.
I am 51 for the first time, I am still not up to the same energy levels I hope to regain and I am hanging in at 220lbs 29%bf versus my former glories.
I also have a cool little scar down on my abdomen sort of just inboard and below my right hip bone (I think the term is inguinal) that is 45 years old now. I had a testicle that didn't want to descend and at the age of 6 I had an orchiopexy. Almost by definition, this is an issue of hypogonadism from birth as male hormones are what drives most of this process when it happens naturally.
SIDE NOTE - As a result, I have one little, underdeveloped testicle that I am also supposed to watch for cancer. It's not supposed to work very well but I can assure you it pumps out swimmers because, in an effort to relieve my wife from the burden of birth control, I tried to have a vasectomy. The expert in this area actually badly hurt me by performing a vasectomy on the presumed functional twin, elected to bypass the little fella, and lab results from the follow up show that we would still make babies (something I/we have had no problems with in the past) rendering the entire process not only painful and angering but, ultimately, futile. Beware rich little bored men with knives.
In the intervening 4 years another thing happened along with my 50th and 51st birthdays, cancer and weight gain ... no more wood. No more real drive for it either and well, we aren't going to make any babies anyway. Pretty noticeable little change that, can't recommend. My wife never had the same drive as I had so I think she is frankly quite relieved. However, this is a problem for me.
So the small ball thing first. I think. This has been a life long thing and not something I've really talked about. I assure you there is a lot of casual glancing near urinals and during communal showers during sports or at the municipal pool. I've noticed (and it's been noted) that I'm not built the same as everyone else, or at least, on the spectrum of male sexual physiology I run a little out of the bumpy part of the bell curve. Hasn't really been much of an issue since puberty. However, I'm a low T guy and have been for my entire life, I just didn't think of it that way.
However, I'm thinking it now. I'm thinking TRT. My doctor (we're new to each other since immediately before the cancer discovery) is not going to be any help. In fact, the only answer he has for me is anti-depressants. I will admit, I was down before the emergency, life-saving bowel resection but it did take four years of no results, a relatively late career change (and it's concomitant poverty), and near-death to get there. I am really strongly disinterested, if not opposed, to anti-depressants. New blood work is going to be necessary. I was at 11.6nmol/L in late Feb. However, I also have ferritin problem (originally due to bleeding from my tumour), a weird high RDW on my CBC that could be from the same or the infusion I got right before my surgery. Anyway, the long and short is I have a doctor I don't know well or trust and he's not going to help with any of this.
I want to look at optimal levels of testosterone via trt and then follow up with tirz or reta once that is stable. From what I can see I am looking at UpGuys as a telehealth for trt or simply go grey and get blood work through teletest.ca. I live at around the mid-point of Vancouver Island in B.C.
I have an appointment with my doctor this week and I've thought about trying to get a referral for an endocrinologist or a urologist as what I have is in their respective wheelhouses. However, I feel that the current state of health care looks to be excellent with life-saving interventions and absolute shit with actual health. Health and wellness look to have been sold off to third parties.
Questions? Comments? ... Dirty Jokes?
The cancer is as in the bag as that sort of thing can be - I have the best prognosis you can have for a guy who packed a tumour for 8-10 years and had it invade surrounding tissue and then get run down so bad I would have accepted it was my time in that moment. Apparently, 46 sites were sampled surrounding what used to be my colon and they all came back negative and I do not even need chemo ... see you in 6 months. I got downgraded from stage 3 or 4 to 2 asked on my unexpected results.
It's been six months. There have been changes to my diet, I really can't drink alcohol, I can't tolerate creatine any more, and I'm really not making any physical/fitness progress for the first time in my life.
I am 51 for the first time, I am still not up to the same energy levels I hope to regain and I am hanging in at 220lbs 29%bf versus my former glories.
I also have a cool little scar down on my abdomen sort of just inboard and below my right hip bone (I think the term is inguinal) that is 45 years old now. I had a testicle that didn't want to descend and at the age of 6 I had an orchiopexy. Almost by definition, this is an issue of hypogonadism from birth as male hormones are what drives most of this process when it happens naturally.
SIDE NOTE - As a result, I have one little, underdeveloped testicle that I am also supposed to watch for cancer. It's not supposed to work very well but I can assure you it pumps out swimmers because, in an effort to relieve my wife from the burden of birth control, I tried to have a vasectomy. The expert in this area actually badly hurt me by performing a vasectomy on the presumed functional twin, elected to bypass the little fella, and lab results from the follow up show that we would still make babies (something I/we have had no problems with in the past) rendering the entire process not only painful and angering but, ultimately, futile. Beware rich little bored men with knives.
In the intervening 4 years another thing happened along with my 50th and 51st birthdays, cancer and weight gain ... no more wood. No more real drive for it either and well, we aren't going to make any babies anyway. Pretty noticeable little change that, can't recommend. My wife never had the same drive as I had so I think she is frankly quite relieved. However, this is a problem for me.
So the small ball thing first. I think. This has been a life long thing and not something I've really talked about. I assure you there is a lot of casual glancing near urinals and during communal showers during sports or at the municipal pool. I've noticed (and it's been noted) that I'm not built the same as everyone else, or at least, on the spectrum of male sexual physiology I run a little out of the bumpy part of the bell curve. Hasn't really been much of an issue since puberty. However, I'm a low T guy and have been for my entire life, I just didn't think of it that way.
However, I'm thinking it now. I'm thinking TRT. My doctor (we're new to each other since immediately before the cancer discovery) is not going to be any help. In fact, the only answer he has for me is anti-depressants. I will admit, I was down before the emergency, life-saving bowel resection but it did take four years of no results, a relatively late career change (and it's concomitant poverty), and near-death to get there. I am really strongly disinterested, if not opposed, to anti-depressants. New blood work is going to be necessary. I was at 11.6nmol/L in late Feb. However, I also have ferritin problem (originally due to bleeding from my tumour), a weird high RDW on my CBC that could be from the same or the infusion I got right before my surgery. Anyway, the long and short is I have a doctor I don't know well or trust and he's not going to help with any of this.
I want to look at optimal levels of testosterone via trt and then follow up with tirz or reta once that is stable. From what I can see I am looking at UpGuys as a telehealth for trt or simply go grey and get blood work through teletest.ca. I live at around the mid-point of Vancouver Island in B.C.
I have an appointment with my doctor this week and I've thought about trying to get a referral for an endocrinologist or a urologist as what I have is in their respective wheelhouses. However, I feel that the current state of health care looks to be excellent with life-saving interventions and absolute shit with actual health. Health and wellness look to have been sold off to third parties.
Questions? Comments? ... Dirty Jokes?
