31 October 2021
On this day in 2012, I officially spent the last day of my working life. For over 42 years the daily focus of my energies had been on work and career. I had epitomized the kind of man who gives over his identity to his job title. Too often I had placed higher importance on that four-letter word, “w-o-r-k” than other priorities, like love, family, marriage, friendships, or good health.
The reason I retired at 60 was a scare I received with a health diagnosis. Prostate cancer had been detected early from a blood test that showed I had PSA levels of 3.0 ng/mL. I was lucky to find this out early. Actually, this level is well within the ‘normal’ Baseline Age-adjusted PSA Levels of 0 to 4.5 ng/mL for a man of 60. However, it was my first ever PSA test result above zero. Follow-up scans and a visit to a specialist confirmed cancer. Luckily it was restricted to the prostate gland itself.
So on November 9th. I went into the hospital for a quick robotic surgery to have the prostate removed. Since that time my PSA test results have been zero.
Many of you know, personally, men who have contracted prostate cancer. You probably know someone who has died. That is not surprising. Did you realize that 50%+ of men get this affliction? Just like breast cancer and ovarian cancer, it impacts many people. So I am not special.
Who do you know?
Two prostate cancer sufferers whose struggle I followed were my cousin Wendy’s husband, Steve, and my dentist Fred Hayes. Both had long drawn out battles involving chemotherapy and radiation treatments, periods of remission, struggles with pain, and finally death.
I’m sure you all know somebody.
Many men have already been suffering from mental health issues way before prostate cancer comes along. They may have already been struggling. For their partners and their families, domestic violence and anger issues might already be happening. So when you add prostate cancer to the mix, depression, and anxiety may be exacerbated. Not a happy mix for the wives and children involved.
Behind the closed doors of many houses in our streets, lots of men and women are suffering from these scenarios. It is an awfully big issue.
Over the last few years, each November I grow a moustache or a beard, plus I undertake some kind of physical challenge to help raise money for the fight to improve outcomes for men with prostate cancer or with mental health problems. It is called Movember.
https://au.movember.com/mospace/13642554
My time since retiring has not always been happy. My battles with depression have taken a great toll on my wife Rita, our daughter Jo, and our day-to-day family life. Exploding out of the depths of depression with unacceptable outbursts of anger, or being impossible to communicate with during bouts of high anxiety, means I hurt those I love in such a terrible way. Over time, Rita and Jo have lost trust in me. This is domestic violence. Nobody should have to endure such despicable behaviour.
I have tried a number of different drugs regimes and therapies, psychological counseling, men’s group counseling sessions, meditation, and mindfulness. All of these things work to some extent. But their effect diminishes. One particularly harrowing period was about 2-to-3 years ago when, working with my doctor, I went through the ordeal of changing my medications. The old drug I had been taking, Citalopram, seemed to lose its efficacy. But to switch to something new meant weaning of the old drug first. Followed by a period when we tried several different medications that didn’t seem to work. It was terrible. I seemed to be in pain and misery constantly.
It was absolutely horrible for Rita and Jo to live with. I remember going to visit Mrin, my wonderful doctor, breaking down and crying, begging her to get me off the drugs that were not working, pleading for an alternative. We switched to the drugs I am currently taking.
Valdoxin, containing Agomelatine changes your daily sleep and appetite patterns. It was quite a departure from the previous approach which attempts to regulate the serotonin in your brain. I take this together with Quetiapine which is intended to treat anxiety. It is supposed to improve concentration and help you think more clearly and positively, feel less nervous, and improve mood. For the first 6 months after switching over to these new drugs, my behaviour regressed a lot. In between periods of heightened anxiety, or angry flare-ups, I seemed to sleep for an inordinate number of hours. But gradually things improved.
One piece of learning from this episode was realizing if I could anticipate my anxiety earlier, I might be able to intercede before the seemingly inevitable angry outburst erupts. If I could learn to recognize when the cortisol was rising to my amygdala, and take some kind of time-out, I might be able to modify my patterns of behaviour.
I put lots of effort into mindfulness. I think this helped.
From March 2020 onwards Australians were confronted with the Covid-19 pandemic. Lockdowns occurred in some states. We all began wearing masks, washing our hands much more assiduously, wearing gloves, staying at home, away from the public. To tell the truth, I was already becoming a hermit, closing down contacts, keeping away from friends and family, declining invitations to participate in most kinds of get-togethers. Exorcising my guilt for being a bad person. So for me, it was easy to retreat into the Covid-hermit-cave. I found solace. I like my own company. Again, this was very unfair to Rita. Yet another way I manage to hurt the person I love the most.
Now, as lock-downs are lifting, as people are emerging from their Covid-hermit-caves, I’m ill-inclined to join them. The comparative safety of the hermit life seems preferable. No need to cope with anxiety.
Last Saturday I read an article on the ABC News website about a man who hiked for 5 months across the Himalayas. This gentleman spoke about walking and its primal connection to the mind, and how walking for long distances every day, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other, helped improve his mental health. I find this encouraging.
All this is a part of why I have hatched this plan over the last 18 months to go bikepacking. It is why I have been getting my new bike built and gathering together camping equipment. I’m seeking better mental health. I’m trying as hard as I can to be a better person.
As I look back on those 42 years I spent trying to be good at my work, trying to craft a career to be proud of, I realize that I gave my identity over to that four-letter word, “w-o-r-k”. I was always unable to find the bandwidth to be a good worker, a good husband, a good father, a good student, and a good friend all at the same time. I only had the capability to be really good at one of those things at any one time.
In these 9 years since retiring, those concentric circles of bandwidth-of-attention have been collapsing in. The diameter of my attention span has been getting smaller and smaller. Before it implodes, I plan to get out and ride my bike, see something more of this world and try ever so hard to regain mental health. I owe it to Rita and Jo.