Six weeks and 25,000 miles later I made it back Home early Thursday morning and went straight to the ER, which probably saved my only remaining kidney from acute Renal Failure.  No joke.  The entire flight(s) home I was unable to urinate properly, and the unrelated abdominal cramps were crippling for 14+ hours.  11 of those hours were spent inside the airplane lavatory.  It was a real party.  The flight attendants were wonderfully compassionate, but there is only so much they could do as we sailed over the arctic.  When I got to the ER, they drained my bladder with a catheter and the relief was beyond words.... In retrospect, I was experiencing a combination of factors, food poisoning chief among them but that did not explain the blockage. 

Here is Dr. Song's assessment after the fact: 

Dear John, 

The reason why you were blocked to be unable to urinate is clear, it is just like a lottery ticket: when there is some blockage in the prostate to be discharged, it is in the process of ascending or descending of the plane. Due to the change of air pressure, these blockage substances are sucked into the bladder from the posterior urethra to block the urinary hole of the bladder, resulting in the inability to urinate.

We had two big meetings the next day in the Low Country and those went well, and Whitney nursed me over the weekend so as I sit here writing on Monday morning, I am starting to feel semi-normal.  

Man! It is good to be home; to see Whitney's face every day, to crawl into my own bed, to have access to the internet without using a VPN, and of course, to drive my own wheels.  I did not drive for 6 weeks, so that first 30 minutes of the drive to Charleston was a re-acclimation of sorts.  

So it was a strange ending to an otherwise magical experience.  The folks at the clinic in China never promised 100% cure rate across the population of their patients, but I feel I am well on my way to that end result.  I saw it in two of my brothers while I was there, and it is just a matter of a few weeks/months until mine is confirmed- "undetectable".   And to achieve that with more strength than I've had in years, 25 pounds less weight, an intact prostate, no radiation or chemo poisoning, really does make me a lottery winner.

Thanks to all who stayed in touch while I was 1/2 a world away.  It meant a lot to hear your voice or read your text or email.  The time in China reminded met that there are good people everywhere, and also how good we have it here in America.  Leaving was a reminder too how lucky I am to have so many warm friends, a crack set of colleagues at work, and a wife who makes every day seem like Nicholas Sparks is using her for inspiration.

Please send any man who is contemplating a biopsy to me first!  I am not a doctor obviously, but I have first hand knowledge of the effects of a biopsy.  There are smarter and better paths to determine if a man has Prostate Cancer.  Why would you want to go through the rectum, a highly infected area teeming with bacteria and other pathogens to enter a closed environment like the prostate gland?  Makes little sense but it is standard procedure in the West.  And when a urologist says they "don't know" what causes BPH, that should be a first clue.  It can be reversed; mine is 20% smaller than when I got to China, and it is not done healing.  Instead of treating the symptoms- frequency of urination, interrupted sleep, ED, etc., let's talk about treating the causes and reversing the actual condition, not living with a "new normal" diminished quality of life.

So give any fellow you know my number and let's have that conversation. Really, we can talk about any prostate issue: BPH, Prostatitis, Cancer, etc.  Glad to take that call and help them make informed decisions.

Keep climbing,

John
864-551-7588